ENGLISH SEAMEN 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



FROUDE'S WORKS. 



History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death 

of Elizabeth. Twelve vols., lamo, gilt top, . . |i8 

The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century. Three 

vols., i2mo, • • 4 

Short Studies on Great Subjects. Four vols. i2mo. Per 
vol., 



Life and Tinnes of Thomas Becket. i2mo, paper, 
Caesar. A Sketch. i2mo, gilt top, . . . . 
Luther. A Short Biography. Cloth, 75 cts. Paper, . 
Thomas Carlyle. Library Edition. Four vols., 8vo, . 

Cheaper Edition. Two vols., i2mo, 
Jane Welsh Carlyle. Letters and Memorials of. 



Library 



Edition. Two vols., 8vo, 

Cheaper Eiiition. One vol., i2mo, 
Thomas Carlyle. Reminiscences by. 8vo, . 

Cheaper Edition. i2mo, 
Oceana. England and Her Colonies. Illus. Crown 8vo, 

The English in the West Indies; or, The Box ofUIys-^es 

Illus. Crown 8vo 

The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon. 8vo, . 

The Spanish Story of the Armada, and other Essays. i2mo 

The Life and Letters of Erasmus. Svo, 

English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century. 8vo. 



ENGLISH SEAMEN 



IN 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 



LECTURES DELIVERED AT OXFORD 
EASTER TERMS, 1893-4 



/ 



JAMES ANTHONY FEOUDE 

LATE KEGICS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN 
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 




5ui36' 



NEW YORK 
CHAELES SCKIBNEE'S SONS 

1895 

[All rights reserved] 



w 



A «^^ 

■ Fa 




Copyright, 1S95, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKB-NOINQ COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I 

PAGE 

The Sea Cradle op the Reformation, ... 1 

LECTURE II 
John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade, . 26 

LECTURE III 
Sir John Hawkins and Philip the Second, . . 50 

LECTURE IV 
Drake's Voyage Round the World, .... 75 

LECTURE V 
Parties in the State, 104 

LECTURE VI 
The Great Expedition to the West Indies, . . 130 

LECTURE VII 
Attack on Cadiz, 153 

LECTURE VIII 
Sailing of the Armada, 176 

LECTURE IX 
Defeat of the Armada, 201 



ENGLISH SEAMEN 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTUKY 
LECTURE I 

THE SEA CRADLE OF THE REFOEMATION 

Jean Paul, the German poet, said that God had 
given to France the empire of the land, to England 
the empire of the sea, and to his own country the 
empire of the air. The world has changed since 
Jean Paul's days. The wings of France have been 
clipj)ed; the German Empire has become a solid 
thing ; but England still holds her watery dominion ; 
Britannia does still rule the waves, and in this 
proud position she has spread the English race 
over the globe ; she has created the great American 
nation ; she is peopling new Englands at the 
Antipodes ; she has made her Queen Empress of 
India ; and is in fact the very considerable pheno- 
menon in the social and political world which all 
acknowledge her to be. And all this she has 
achieved in the course of three centuries, entirely 
in consequence of her predominance as an ocean 
power. Take away her merchant fleets ; take away 



2 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

the navy that guards them : her empire will come 
to an end ; her colonies will fall off, like leaves from 
a withered tree; and Britain Avill become once 
more an insignificant island in the North Sea, for 
the future students in Australian and New Zealand 
imiversities to discuss the fate of in their debating 
societies. 

How the English navj came to hold so extra- 
ordinary a position is worth reflecting on. Much 
has been written about it, but little, as it seems to 
me, which touches the heart of the matter. We 
are shown the power of our country growing and 
expanding. But how it grew, why, after a sleep of 
so many hundred years, the genius of our Scandina- 
vian forefathers suddenly sprang again into life— of 
this we are left without explanation. 

The beginning was undoubtedly the defeat of the 
Spanish Armada in 1588. Down to that time the 
sea sovereignty belonged to the Spaniards, and had 
been fairly won by them. The conquest of Granada 
had stimulated and elevated the Spanish character. 
The subjects of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Charles 
V. and Philip II., were extraordinary men, and ac- 
complished extraordinary things. They stretched 
the limits of the knoAvn world; they conquered 
Mexico and Peru ; they planted their colonies over 
the South American continent ; they took posses- 
sion of the great West Indian islands, and Avith so 
firm a grasp that Cuba at least will never lose the 
mark of the hand which seized it. They built their 
cities as if for eternity. They spread to the Indian 



The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 3 

Ocean, and gave their monarch's name to the Philip- 
pines. All this they accomplished in half a century, 
and, as it were, they did it with a single hand ; witli 
the other they were fighting Moors and Turks and 
protecting the coast of the Mediterranean from the 
corsairs of Tunis and Constantinople. 

They had risen on the crest of the wave, and 
with their proud Non sufficit orbis were looking for 
new worlds to conquer, at a time when the bark of 
the English water-dogs had scarcely been heard 
beyond their own fishing grounds, and the largest 
merchant vessel sailing from the port of London was 
scarce bigger than a modern coasting collier. And 
yet within the space of a single ordinary life these 
insignificant islanders had struck the sceptre from 
the Spaniards' grasp and placed the ocean crown 
on the brow of their own sovereign. How did it 
come about? What Cadmus had sown dragons' 
teeth in the furrows of the sea for the race to spring 
from who manned the ships of Queen Elizabeth, 
who carried the flag of their own country round the 
globe, and challenged and fought the Spaniards on 
their own coasts and in their own harbom's? 

The English sea power was the legitimate child 
of the Reformation. It grew, as I shall show you, 
directly out of the new despised Protestantism. 
Matthew Parker and Bishop Jewel, the judicious 
Hooker himself, excellent men as they were, would 
have written and preached to small purpose with- 
out Sir Francis Drake's cannon to play an accom- 
paniment to their teaching. And again, Drake's 



4 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

cannon would not have roared so loudly and so 
widely without seamen already trained in heart and 
hand to work his ships and level his artillery. It 
was to the superior seamanship, the superior quality 
of English ships and crews, that the Spaniards at- 
tributed their defeat. Where did these ships come 
from? Where and how did these mariners learn 
their trade ? Historians talk enthusiastically of the 
national spirit of a people rising with a united heart 
to repel the invader, and so on. But national spirit 
could not extemporise a fleet or produce trained of- 
ficers and sailors to match the conquerors of Le- 
panto. One slight observation I must make here 
at starting, and certainly with no invidious purpose. 
It has been said confidently, it has been repeated, 
I believe, by all modern writers, that the S panis h 
invasion suspended in England the quarrels of 
creed, and united Protestants and Roman Catholics 
in defence of their Queen and country. They re- 
mind us especially that Lord Howard of Effingham, 
who was Elizabeth's admiral, was himself a Roman 
Catholic. But was it so? The Earl of Arundel, 
the head of the House of Howard, was a Roman 
Catholic, and he was in the Tower praying for the suc- 
cess of Medina Sidonia. Lord Howard of Efiingham 
was no more a Roman Catholic than — I hope I am not 
taking away their character — than the present Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. He 
was a Catholic, but an English Catholic, as those 
reverend prelates are. Roman Catholic he could 
not possibly have been, nor anyone who on that 



The Sea Cradle of the Beforination 5 

great occasion was found on the side of Elizabetli. 
A Roman Catholic is one who acknowledges the 
Roman Bishop's authority. The Pope had excom- 
municated Elizabeth, had pronounced her deposed, 
had absolved her subjects from their allegiance, and 
forbidden them to fight for her. No Englishman 
who fought on that great occasion for English lib- 
erty Avas, or could have been, in communion with 
Rome. Loose statements of this kind, lightly made, 
fall in with the modern humour. They are caught 
up, applauded, repeated, and pass unquestioned into 
history. It is time to correct them a little. 

I have in my possession a detailed account of the 
temper of parties in England, drawn up in the year 
1585, three years before the Armada came. The 
writer was a distinguished Jesuit. The account it- 
self was prepared for the use of the Pope and Philip, 
with a special view to the reception which an in- 
vading force would meet with, and it goes into great 
detail. The people of the towns — London, Bristol, 
&c. — were, he says, generally heretics. The peers, 
the gentry, their tenants, and peasantry, who formed 
the immense majority of the population, were almost 
universally Catholics. But this writer distinguishes 
properly among Catholics. There were the ardent 
impassioned Catholics, ready to be confessors and 
martyrs, ready to rebel at the first opportunity, who 
had renounced their allegiance, who desired to over- 
throw Elizabeth and put the Queen of Scots in her 
place. The number of these, he says, was daily in- 
creasing, owing to the exertions of the seminary 



6 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

priests ; and plots, lie boasts, were being continually 
formed by them to murder the Queen. There were 
Catholics of another sort, who were papal at heart, 
but went with the times to save their property ; who 
looked forward to a change in the natural order of 
things, but would not stir of themselves till an in- 
vading army actually appeared. But all alike, he 
insists, were eager for a revolution. Let the Prince 
of Parma come, and they would all join him; and 
together these two classes of Catholics made three- 
fourths of the nation. 

'The only party,' he says (and this is really no- 
ticeable), 'the only party that would fight to death 
for the Queen, the only real friends she had, were 
the Puritans (it is the ^ first mention of the name 
which I have found), the Puritans of London, the 
Puritans of the sea towns.' These he admits were 
dangerous, desperate, determined men. The num- 
bers of them, however, were providentially small. 

The date of this document is, as I said, 1585, and 
I believe it generally accurate. The only mistake 
is that among the Anglican Catholics there were a 
few to whom their country was as dear as their 
creed — a few who were beginning to see that under 
the Act of Uniformity Catholic doctrine might be 
taught and Catholic ritual practised; who adhered 
to the old forms of religion, but did not believe that 
obedience to the Pope was a necessary part of them. 
One of these was Lord Howard of Efiingham, whom 
the Queen placed in his high command to secure the 
wavering fidelity of the peers and country gentle- 



The Sea Cradle of ike Reformation 7 

men. But the force, the tire, the enthusiasm came 
(as the Jesuit saw) from the Puritans, from men of 
the same convictions as the Calviuists of Holland 
and Rochelle ; men who, driven from the land, took 
to the ocean as their natural home, and nm'sed the 
Reformation in an ocean cradle. How the seagoing 
population of the North of Europe took so strong a 
Protestant impression it is the purpose of these 
lectures to explain. 

Henry VIII. on coming to the throne found Eng- 
land without a fleet, and without a conscious sense 
of the need of one. A few merchant hulks traded 
with Bordeaux and Cadiz and Lisbon ; hoys and fly- 
boats drifted slowly backwards and forwards between 
Antwerp and the Thames. A fishing fleet tolerably 
appointed went annually to Iceland for cod. Local 
fishermen worked the North Sea and the Channel 
from Hull to Falmouth. The Chester people went 
to Kinsale for herrings and mackerel : but that was 
all — the nation had aspired to no more. 

Columbus had offered the New World to Henry 
VII. while the discovery was still in the air. He 
had sent his brother to England with maps and 
globes, and quotations from Plato to prove its exist- 
ence, Henry, like a practical Englishman, treated 
it as a wild dream. 

The dream had come from the gate of horn. 
America was found, and the Spaniard, and not the 
English, came into first possession of it. Still, 
America was a large place, and John Cabot the 
Venetian with his son Sebastian tried Henry again. 



8 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

England might still be able to secui'e a slice. This 
time Henry VII. listened. Two small ships were 
fitted out at Bristol, crossed the Atlantic, discovered 
Newfoundland, coasted down to Florida looking for 
a passage to Cathay, but could not find one. The 
elder Cabot died; the younger came home. The 
expedition failed, and no interest had been roused. 

With the accession of Henry VIII. a new era had 
opened — a new era in many senses. Printing was 
coming into use — Erasmus and his companions were 
shaking Europe with the new learning, Copernican 
astronomy was changing the level disk of the earth 
into a revolving globe, and turning dizzy the 
thoughts of mankind. Imagination was on the 
stretch. The reality of things was assuming propor- 
tions vaster than fancy had dreamt, and unfastening 
established belief on a thousand sides. The young 
Henry was welcomed by Erasmus as likely to be the 
glory of the age that was opening. He was young, 
brilliant, cultivated, and ambitious. To what might 
he not aspire under the new conditions! Henry 
VIII. was all that, but he was cautious and looked 
about him. Europe was full of wars in which ho 
was likely to be entangled. His father had left the 
treasui-y well furnished. The young King, like a 
wise man, turned his first attention to the broad 
ditch, as he called the British Channel, which formed 
the natm-al defence of the realm. The opening of 
the Atlantic had revolutionised war and seamanship. 
Long voyages required larger vessels. Henry was 
the first prince to see the place which gunpowder 



The Sea Cradle of the lleformation 9 

was going to hold iu wars. lu liis first years he re- 
paired his dockyards, built uew ships ou improved 
models, and imported Italians to cast him new types 
of cannon. ' King Harry loved a man,' it was said, 
and knew a man when he saw one. He made ac- 
quaintance with sea captains at Portsmouth and 
Southampton. In some way or other he came to 
know one Mr. William Hawkins, of Plymouth, and 
held him in especial esteem. This Mr. Hawkins, 
under Henry's patronage, ventured down to the 
coast of Guinea and brought home gold and ivory ; 
crossed over to Brazil ; made friends with the Bra- 
zilian natives; even brought back with him the 
king of those countries, who was curious to see what 
England was like, and presented him to Henry at 
Whitehall. 

Another Plymouth man, Kobert Thome, again 
with Henry's help, went out to look for the North- 
west passage which Cabot had failed to find. 
Thome's ship was called the Dominus Vohiscum, a 
pious aspiration which, however, secured no suc- 
cess. A London man, a Master Hore, tried next. 
Master Hore, it is said, was given to cosmography, 
was a plausible talker at scientific meetings, and so on. 
He persuaded ' divers young lawyers ' (briefless bar- 
risters, I suppose) and other gentlemen — altogether 
a hundred and twenty of them — to join him. They 
procured two vessels at Gravesend. They took the 
sacrament together before sailing. They apparently 
relied on Providence to take care of them, for they 
made little other preparation. They reached New- 



10 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

foundlaud, but tlieir stores ran out, aud their ships 
went on shore. In the land of fish they did not 
know how to use line and bait. They fed on roots 
and bilberries, and picked fish bones out of the 
ospreys' nests. At last they began to eat one an- 
other — careless of Master Hore, who told them they 
would go to unquenchable fire. A French vessel 
came in. They seized her with the food she had 
on board and sailed home in her, leaving the French 
crew to their fate. The poor French happily found 
means of following them. They complained of their 
treatment, and Henry ordered an inquiry ; but find- 
ing, the report says, the gTeat distress Master Hore's 
party had been in, was so moved with pity, that he 
did not punish them, but out of his own jjurse 
made royal recompense to the French. 

Something better than gentlemen volunteers was 
needed if naval enterprise was to come to anything 
in England. The long wars between Francis I. and 
Charles V. brought the problem closer. On land 
the fighting was between the regular armies. At sea 
privateers were let loose out of French, Flemish, 
and Spanish ports. Enterprising individuals took 
out letters of marque and went cruising to take the 
chance of what they could catch. The Channel was 
the chief hunting-ground, as being the highway be- 
tween Spain and the Low Countries. The interval 
was short between privateers and j)irates. Vessels 
of all sorts passed into the business. The Scilly 
Isles became a pirate stronghold. The creeks and 
estuaries in Cork and Kerry furnished hiding- 



Tlie Sea Cradle of the Reformation 11 

places where the rovers could lie with security aucl 
share their plunder with the Irish chiefs. The dis- 
order grew wilder when the divorce of Catherine of 
Aragon made Henry into the public enemy of Papal 
Eui'ope. English traders and fishing smacks were 
plundered and sunk. Their crews went armed to 
defend themselves, and from Thames mouth to 
Land's End the Channel became the scene of des- 
perate fights. The type of vessel altered to suit 
the new conditions. Life depended on speed of 
sailing. The State Papers describe squadrons of 
French or Spaniards flying about, dashing into 
Dartmouth, Plymouth, or Falmouth, cutting out 
English coasters, or fighting one another. 

After Henry w^as excommunicated, and Ireland 
rebelled, and England itself threatened disturbance, 
the King had to look to his security. He made lit- 
tle noise about it. But the Spanish ambassador re- 
ported him as silently building ships in the Thames 
and at Portsmouth. As invasion seemed imminent, 
he began with sweeping the seas of the looser vermin. 
A few swift well-armed cruisers pushed suddenly 
out of the Solent, caught and destroyed a pirate 
fleet in Mount's Bay, sent to the bottom some 
Flemish privateers in the Downs, and captured the 
Flemish admiral himself. Danger at home growing 
more menacing, and the monks spreading the fire 
which grew into the PilgTimage of Grace, Henry 
suppressed the abbeys, sold the lands, and with the 
proceeds armed the coast with fortresses. ' You 
threaten me,' he seemed to say to them, ' that you 



12 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

will use the wealtli our fathers gave you to over- 
throw my Government and bring in the invader, I 
will take youi* wealth, and I will use it to disap- 
point your treachery.' You may see the remnants 
of Henry's work in the fortresses anywhere along 
the coast from Berwick to the Land's End. 

Louder thundered the Vatican. In 1539 Henry's 
time appeared to have come. France and Spain 
made peace, and the Pope's sentence was now ex- 
pected to be executed by Charles or Francis, or 
both. A crowd of vessels large and small was col- 
lected in the Scheldt, for what purpose save to 
transport an army into England? Scotland had 
joined the Catholic League. Henry fearlessly ap- 
jiealed to the English people. Catholic peers and 
priests might conspire against him, but, explain it 
how we will, the nation was loyal to Henry and 
came to his side. The London merchants armed 
their ships in the river. From the seaports every- 
Avhere came armed brigantines and sloops. The 
fishermen of the West left their boats and nets to 
their wives, and the fishing was none the worse, for 
the women handled oar and sail and line and went 
to the whiting grounds, while their husbands had 
gone to fight for their King. Genius kindled into 
discovery at the call of the country. Mr. Fletcher 
of Rye (be his name remembered) invented a boat 
the like of which was never seen before, which 
would work to windward, with sails trimmed fore 
and aft, the greatest revolution yet made in ship- 
building. A hundred and fifty sail collected at 



The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 13 

Sandwich to match, the armament in the Scheldt ; 
and Marillac, the French ambassador, reported with 
amazement the energy of King and people. 

The Catholic Powers thought better of it. This 
was not the England which Reginald Pole had 
told them was longing for their appearance. The 
Scheldt force dispersed. Henry read Scotland 
a needed lesson. The Scots had thought to take 
him at disadvantage, and sit on his back when 
the Emperor attacked him. One morning when 
the people at Leith woke out of their sleep, they 
found an English fleet in the Roads ; and before 
they had time to look about them, Leith was on 
fire and Edinburgh was taken. Charles V., if he 
had ever seriously thought of invading Henry, re- 
turned to wiser counsels, and made an alliance 
with him instead. The Pope turned to France. 
If the Emperor forsook him, the Most Chris- 
tian King would help. He promised Francis 
that if he could win England he might keep it 
for himself. Francis resolved to try what he 
could do. 

Five years had passed since the gathering at 
Sandwich. It was now the summer of 1544. The 
records say that the French collected at Havre 
near 300 vessels, fighting ships, galleys, and trans- 
ports. Doubtless the numbers are far exaggerated, 
but at any rate it was the largest force ever yet got 
together to invade England, capable, if well handled, 
of bringing Henry to his knees. The plan was to 
seize and occupy the Isle of Wight, destroy the 



14 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

English fleet, then take Portsmouth and Southamp- 
ton, and so advance on London. 

Henry's attention to his navy had not slackened. 
He had built ship on ship. The Great Harry was a 
thousand tons, carried 700 men, and was the won- 
der of the day. There were a dozen others scarcely 
less imposing. The King called again on the na- 
tion, and again the nation answered. In England 
altogether there were 150,000 men in arms in field 
or garrison. In the King's fleet at Portsmouth 
there were 12,000 seamen, and the privateers of the 
West crowded up eagerly as before. It is strange, 
with the notions which we have allowed oui'selves 
to form of Henry, to observe the enthusiasm with 
which the whole country, as yet undivided by 
doctrinal quarrels, rallied a second time to defend 
him. 

In this Portsmouth fleet lay undeveloped the 
genius of the future naval greatness of England. 
A small fact connected with it is worth recording. 
The watchword on board was ' God save the King ' ; 
the answer was, ' Long to reign over us ' : the 
earliest germ discoverable of the English National 
Anthem. 

The King had come himself to Portsmouth to 
witness the expected attack. The fleet was com- 
manded by Lord Lisle, afterwards Duke of North- 
umberland. It was the middle of July. The 
French crossed from Havre unfought with, and 
anchored in St. Helens Roads off Brading Harbour. 
The English, being greatly inferior in numbers, lay 



The Sea Cradle of the Beformation 15 

waiting for them inside the Spit. The morning 
after the French came in was still and sultry. The 
English could not move for want of wind. The 
galleys crossed over and engaged them for two or 
three hom-s with some advantage. The breeze rose 
at noon ; a few fast sloops got under way and 
easily drove them back. But the same breeze 
which enabled the English to move brought a 
serious calamity with it. The Mary Rose, one of 
Lisle's finest vessels, had been under the fire of the 
galleys. Her ports had been left open, and when 
the wind sprang up, she heeled over, filled, and 
went down, carrying two hundred men along with 
her. The French saw her sink, and thought their 
own guns had done it. They hoped to follow up 
their success. At night they sent over boats to 
take soundings, and discover the way into the 
harbour. The boats reported that the sandbanks 
made the approach impossible. The French had 
no clear plan of action. They tried a landing in 
the island, but the force was too small, and failed. 
They weighed anchor and brought up again behind 
Selsea Bill, where Lisle proposed to run them 
down in the dark, taking advantage of the tide. 
But they had an enemy to deal with worse than 
Lisle, on board their own ships, which explained 
their distracted movements. Hot weather, putrid 
meat, and putrid water had prostrated whole ships' 
companies with dysentery. After a three weeks' 
ineffectual cruise they had to hasten back to Havre, 
break up, and disperse. The first great armament 



16 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

which was to have recovered England to the 
Papacy had effected nothing. Henry had once 
more shown his strength, and was left undisputed 
master of the narrow seas. 

So matters stood for what remained of Henry's 
reign. As far as he had gone, he had quarrelled 
with the Pope, and had brought the Church under 
the law. So far the country generally had gone 
with him, and there had been no violent changes 
in the administration of religion. When Henry 
died the Protector abolished the old creed, and 
created a new and perilous cleavage between 
Protestant and Catholic, and, while England needed 
the protection of a navy more than ever, allowed 
the fine fleet which Henry had left to fall into decay. 
The spirit of enterprise grew with the Reformation, 
Merchant companies opened trade with Russia and 
the Levant; adventurous sea captains went to 
Guinea for gold. Sir Hugh Willoughby followed 
the phantom of the North-west Passage, tm-ning 
eastward round the North Cape to look for it, and 
perished in the ice. English commerce was begin- 
ning to grow in spite of the Protector's experiments ; 
but a new and infinitely dangerous element had 
been introduced by the change of religion into the 
relations of English sailors with the Catholic Powers, 
and especially with Spain. In their zeal to keep 
out heresy, the Spanish Government placed their 
harbours under the control of the Holy Ofiice. 
Any vessel in which an heretical book was found 
was confiscated, and her crew carried to the Inqui- 



The Sen Oradle of the Reformation 17 

sition prisons. It had begun in Henry's time. 
The Inquisitors attempted to treat schism as heresy 
and arrest EngHshmen in their ports. But Henry 
spoke up stoutly to Charles V., and the Holy Office 
had been made to hold its hand. All was altered 
now. It was not necessary that a poor sailor should 
have been found teaching heresy. It was enough 
if he had an English Bible and Prayer Book with 
him in his kit ; and stories would come into Dart- 
mouth or Plymouth how some lad that everybody 
knew — Bill or Jack or Tom, who had wife or father 
or mother among them, perhaps — had been seized 
hold of for no other crime, been flung into a dun- 
geon, tortured, starved, set to work in the galleys, 
or burned in a fool's coat, as they called it, at an 
auto da fe at Seville. 

The object of the Inquisition Avas partly politi- 
cal: it was meant to embarrass trade and make 
the people impatient of changes which produced 
so much inconvenience. The effect was exactly the 
opposite. Such accounts Avhen brought home 
created fury. There grew up in the seagoing 
population an enthusiasm of hatred for that holy 
institution, and a passionate desire for revenge. 

The natural remedy would have been war ; but 
the division of nations was crossed by the division 
of creeds ; and each nation had allies in the heart of 
every other. If England went to war with Spain, 
Spain could encourage insurrection among the 
Catholics. If Spain or France declared war against 
England, England could help the Huguenots or the 
2 




IS English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Holland Calvinists. All Governments were afraid 
alike of a general war of religion A\liicli might sliake 
Em-ope in pieces. Thus individuals were left to 
their natural impulses. The Holy Office burnt 
English or French Protestants wherever it could 
catch them. The Protestants revenged their in- 
juries at their own risk and in their own way, and 
thus from Edward VI.'s time to the end of the 
century privateering came to be the special occupa- 
tion of adventurous honourable gentlemen, who could 
serve God, their country, and themselves in ligh ting- 
Catholics. Fleets of these dangerous vessels swept 
the Channel, lying in Avait at Scill}^, or even at the 
Azores — disowned in public by their own Govern- 
ments while secretly countenanced, making war on 
their own account on what they called the enemies 
of God. In such a business, of course, there were 
many mere pirates engaged who cared neither for 
God nor man. But it was the Protestants who 
were specially impelled into it by the cruelties of 
the Inquisition. The Holy Office began the Avork 
with the autos da fL The privateers robbed, burnt, 
and scuttled Catholic ships in retaliation. One 
fierce deed produced another, till right and wrong 
were obscured in the passion of religious hatred. 
Vivid pictm-es of these wild doings survive in the 
English and Spanish State Papers. Ireland was 
the rovers' favourite haunt. In the universal 
anarchy there, a little more or a little less did not 
signify. Notoi'ious pirate captains were to be met 
in Cork or Kinsale, collecting stores, casting 



TJie Sea Cradle of the Reformation 19 

cannon, or selling their prizes — men of all sorts, 
from fanatical saints to undisguised ruffians. Here 
is one incident out of many to show the heights to 
which temper had risen. 

* Long peace,' says someone, addressing the 
Privy Council early in Elizabeth's time, 'becomes 
by force of the Spanish Inquisition more hurtful 
than open war. It is the secret, determined policy 
of Spain to destroy the English fleet, pilots, masters 
and sailors, by means of the Inquisition. The 
Spanish King pretends he dares not offend the Holy 
House, while we in England say we may not pro- 
claim war against Spain in revenge of a few. Not 
long since the Spanish Inquisition executed sixty 
persons of St. Malo, notwithstanding entreaty to 
the King of Spain to spare them. Whereupon the 
Frenchmen armed their pinnaces, lay for the 
Spaniards, took a hundred and beheaded them, 
sending the Spanish ships to the shore with their 
heads, leaving in each ship but one man to render 
the cause of the revenge. Since which time Spanish 
Inquisitors have never meddled with those of St. 
Malo.' 

A colony of Huguenot refugees had settled on 
the coast of Florida. The Spaniards heard of it, 
came from St. Domingo, burnt the town, and hanged 
every man, woman, and child, leaving an inscription 
explaining that the poor creatures had been IdUed, 
not as Frenchmen, but as heretics. Domenique de 
Gourges, of Kochelle, heard of tliis fine exploit of 
fanaticism, equipped a ship, and sailed across. He 



20 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

cauglit the Spanish garrison which had been left 
in occupation and swung them on the same trees — 
with a second scroll saying that they were dangling 
there, not as Spaniards, but as murderers. 

The genius of adventui'o tempted men of highest 
birth into the rovers' ranks. Sir Thomas Seymour, 
the Protector's brother and the King's uncle, was 
Lord High Admiral. In his time of office, com- 
plaints were made by foreign merchants of ships 
and property seized at the Thames mouth. No 
redress could bo had ; no restitution made ; no 
pirate was even punished, and SeymoiU''s personal 
followers were seen suspiciously decorated with 
Spanish ornaments. It appeared at last that Sey- 
mour had himself bought the Scilly Isles, and if he 
could not have his way at Court, it was said that 
he meant to set up there as a pirate chief. 

The persecution under Mary brought in more 
respectable recruits than Seymour. The younger 
generation of the Avestern families had grown with 
the times. If they were not theologically Protes- 
tant, they detested tyranny. They detested the 
marriage with Philip, which threatened the indepen- 
dence of England. At home they were powerless, 
but the sons of honourable houses — Strangways, 
Tremaynes, Staffords, Horseys, Carews, Killegrews, 
and Cobhams — dashed out upon the water to re- 
venge the Smithfield massacres. They found help 
where it could least have been looked for. Henry 
II. of France hated heresy, but he hated Spain 
worse. Sooner than see Enaland absorbed in the 



The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 21 

Spanish monarchy, he forgot his bigotry iu his poli- 
tics. He furuishecl these young mutineers with ships 
and money and letters of marque. The Huguenots 
were their natural friends. With Rochelle for an 
arsenal, they held the mouth of the Channel, and 
harassed the communications between Cadiz and 
Antwerp. It was a wild business : enterprise and 
buccaneering sanctified by religion and hatred of 
cruelty ; but it was a school like no other for sea- 
manship, and a school for the building of vessels 
which could outsail all others on the sea ; a school, 
too, for the training up of hardy men, in whose 
blood ran detestation of the Inquisition and the In- 
quisition's master, "^very other trade was swallowed 
up or colom-ed by privateering ; the merchantmen 
v/ent armed, ready for any work that offered ; the 
Iceland fleet went no more in search of cod ; the 
Channel boatmen forsook nets and lines and took 
to livelier occupations ; Mary was too busy burning 
heretics to look to the police of the seas ; her 
father's fine ships rotted in harbom- ; her father's 
coast-forts were deserted or dismantled; she lost 
Calais ; she lost the hearts of her people in forcing 
them into orthodoxy ; she left the seas to the priva- 
teers ; and no trade flourished, save what the Catho- 
lic powers called piracy. 

When Elizabeth came to the throne, the whole 
merchant navy of England engaged in lawful com- 
merce amounted to no more than 50,000 tons. You 
may see more now i^assiug every day through the 
Gull Stream. In the service of the Crown there 



22 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

were but seven revenue cruisers in commission, the 
largest 120 tons, with eight merchant brigs altered 
for fighting. In harbour there were still a score of 
large ships, but they were dismantled and rotting ; 
of artillery fit for sea work there was none. The 
men were not to be had, and, as Sir William Cecil 
said, to fit out ships without men was to set armour 
on stakes on the sea-shore. The mariners of Eng- 
land were otherwise engaged, and in a way which 
did not please Cecil. He was the ablest minister 
that Elizabeth had. He saw at once that on the 
navy the prosperity and even the liberty of England 
must eventually depend. If England were to re- 
main Protestant, it was not by articles of religion or 
acts of uniformity that she could be saved without a 
fleet at the back of them. But he was old-fashioned. 
He believed in law and order, and he has left a 
curious paper of reflections on the situation. The 
ships' companies in Henry VIII.'s days were re- 
cruited from the fishing smacks, but the Reforma- 
tion itself had destroyed the fishing trade. In old 
times, Cecil said, no flesh was eaten on fish days. 
The King himself could not have license. Now to 
eat beef or mutton on fish days was the test of a 
true believer. The English Iceland fishery used to 
supply Normandy and Brittany as well as England. 
Now it had passed to the French. The Chester men 
used to fish the Irish seas. Now they had left them 
to the Scots. The fishermen had taken to privateer- 
ing because the fasts of the Church were neglected. 
He saw it was so. He recorded his own opinion 



The Sea Cradle of the Beforinatlon 23 

that piracy, as lie called it, was detestable, and conld 
not last. He was to find that it could last, that it 
was to form the special discipline of the generation 
whose business would be to fight the Spaniards, 
But he struggled hard against the unwelcome con- 
clusion. He tried to revive lawful trade by a Navi- 
gation Act. He tried to rest ore the fisheries by Act 
of Parliament. He introduced a Bill recommending 
godly abstinence as a means to virtue, making the 
eating of meat on Fridays and Saturdays a misde- 
meanour, and adding Wednesday as a half fish-day. 
The House of Commons laughed at him as bringing 
ba.ck Popish mummeries. To please the Protestants 
he inserted a clause, that the statute was politicly 
meant for the increase of fishermen and mariners, 
not for any superstition in the choice of meats ; but 
it was no use. The Act was called in mockery 
* Cecil's Fast,' and the recovery of the fisheries had 
to wait till the natural inclination of human stom- 
achs for fresh whiting and salt cod should revive 
of itself. 

Events had to take their course. Seamen were 
duly provided in other ways, and such as the time 
required. Privateering suited Elizabeth's conven- 
ience, and suited her disposition. She liked daring 
and adventure. She liked men who Avould do her 
work without being paid for it, men Avhom she could 
disown when expedient ; who would understand her, 
and would not resent it. She knew her turn was to 
come when Philip had leisure to deal with her, if 
she could not secure herself meanwhile. Time was 



24 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

wanted to restore the navy. The privateers were a 
resource in the interval. They might be called pi- 
rates while there was formal peace. The name did 
not signify. They were really the armed force of the 
country. After the war broke out in the Nether- 
lauds, they had commissions from the Prince of 
Orange. Such commissions would not save them if 
taken by Spain, but it enabled them to sell their 
prizes, and for the rest they trusted to their speed 
and their guns. When Elizabeth vras at war with 
France about Havre, she took the most noted of 
them into the service of the Crown. Ned Horsey 
became Sir Edward and Governor of the Isle of 
Wight ; Strangways, a Red Eover in his way, who 
had been the terror of the Spaniards, was killed be- 
fore Rouen ; Tremayne fell at Havre, mourned over 
by Elizabeth ; and Champernowne, one of the most 
gallant of the whole of them, was killed afterwards at 
Coligny's side at Moncoutour. 

But others took their places : the wild hawks as 
thick as seagulls flashing over the waves, fair wind 
or foul, laughing at pursuit, brave, reckless, devoted, 
the crews the strangest medley: English from the 
Devonshire and Cornish creeks, Huguenots from 
Rochelle ; Irish kernes with long skenes, ' desj^erate, 
unruly persons with no kind of mercy.' 

The Holy Office meanwhile went on in cold, 
savage resolution : the Holy Office which had begmi 
the business and was the cause of it, 

A note in Cecil's hand says that in the one year 
1562 twenty-six English subjects had been burnt at 



The Sea Cradle of the Reformation 25 

the stake in diflerent parts of Spain. Teu times as 
many were starving in Spanish dungeons, from 
which occasionally, by happy accident, a cry could 
be heard like this which follows. In 1561 an 
English merchant writes from the Canaries : 

' I was taken by those of the Inquisition twenty 
months past, put into a little dark house two paces 
long, loaded with irons, without sight of sun or 
moon all that time. When I was arraigned I was 
charged that I should say our mass was as good as 
theirs ; that I said I would rather give money to 
the poor than buy Bulls of Home with it. I was 
charged with being a subject to the Queen's grace, 
who, they said, was enemy to the faith, Antichrist, 
mth other opprobrious names ; and I stood to the 
defence of the Queen's Majesty, proving the in- 
famies most untrue. Then I was put into Little 
Ease again, protesting very innocent blood to be 
demanded against the judge before Christ.' 

The innocent blood of these poor victims had 
not to wait to be avenged at the Judgment Day. 
The account was presented shortly and promptly at 
the cannon's mouth. 



LECTURE II 

JOHN HAWKINS AND THE AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE 

I BEGIN this lecture with a petition addressed to 
Queen Elizabeth. Thomas Seely, a merchant of 
Bristol, hearing a Spaniard in a Spanish port utter 
foul and slanderous charges against the Queen's 
character, knocked him down. To knock a man 
down for telling lies about Elizabeth might be a 
breach of the peace, but it had not yet been de- 
clared heresy. The Holy Office, however, seized 
Seely, threw him into a dungeon, and kept him 
starving there for three years, at the end of which 
he contrived to make his condition known in 
England. The Queen wrote herself to Philip to 
protest. Philip would not interfere. Seely re- 
mained in prison and in irons, and the result was a 
petition from his wife, in which the temper which 
was rising can be read as in letters of fire. 
Dorothy Seely demands that 'the friends of her 
Majesty's subjects so imprisoned and tormented in 
Spain may make out ships at their proper charges, 
take such Inquisitors or other Papistical subjects 
of the King of Spain as they can by sea or land, 
and retain them in prison with such torments and 
diet as her Majesty's subjects be kept with in 



John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 27 

Spain, aud on complaint made by the King to give 
such answer as is now made wlien her Majesty 
sues for subjects imprisoned by the Inquisition. 
Or that a Commission be granted to the Archbishop 
of Canterbury and the other bishops word for word 
for foreign Papists as the Inquisitors have in Spain 
for the Protestants. So that all may know that her 
Majesty cannot and will not longer endure the 
spoils and torments of her subjects, and the Span- 
iards shall not think this noble realm dares not 
seek revenge of such importable wi'ongs.' 

Elizabeth issued no such Commission as Dorothy 
Seely asked for, but she did leave her subjects to 
seek their revenge in their own way, and they 
sought it sometimes too rashly. 

In the summer of 1563 eight English merchant- 
men anchored in the roads of Gibraltar. England 
and France were then at war. A French brig came 
in after them, and brought up near. At sea, if 
they could take her, she would have been a lawful 
prize. Spaniards under similar circumstances had 
not respected the neutrality of English harbours. 
The Englishmen were perhaps in doubt what to 
do, when the officers of the Holy Office came off to 
the French ship. The sight of the black familiars 
drove the English wild. Three of them made a 
dash at the French ship, intending to sink her. 
The inquisitors sprang into their boat, and rowed 
for their lives. The castle guns opened, and the 
harbour police put out to interfere. The French ship, 
however, would have been taken, when unluckily 



28 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Alvarez de Bagan, with a Spanish squadron, came 
round into the Straits. Resistance was impossible. 
The eight English ships were captured and carried 
off to Cadiz. The English flag was trailed under 
De Bagan's stern. The crews, two hundred and 
forty men in ail, were promptly condemned to the 
galleys. In defence they could but say that the 
Frenchman was an enemy, and a moderate pun- 
ishment would have sufficed for a violation of 
the harbour rules which the Spaniards them- 
selves so little regarded. But the Inquisition 
was inexorable, and the men were treated with 
such peculiar brutality that after nine months 
ninety only of the two hundred and forty were 
alive. 

Ferocity was answered by ferocity. Listen to 
this ! The Cobhams of Cowling Castle were Prot- 
estants by descent. Lord Cobham was famous in 
the Lollard martyi-ology. Thomas Cobham, one of 
the family, had taken to the sea like many of his 
friends. While cruising in the Channel he caught 
sight of a Spaniard on the way from Antwerp to 
Cadiz with forty prisoners on board, consigned, it 
might be supposed, to the Inquisition. They were, 
of course, Inqmsitiou prisoners ; for other offenders 
would have been dealt with on the spot. Cobham 
chased her down into the Bay of Biscay, took 
her, scuttled her, and rescued the captives. But 
that was not enough. The captain and crew he 
sewed up in their own mainsail and flung them over- 
board. They were washed ashore dead, wrapped 



Johi Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 29 

in their extraordinary winding-slice t. Cobham was 
called to account for this exploit, biit he does not 
seem to have been actually punished. In a very 
short time he was out and away again at the 
old work. There were plenty Avitli him. After 
the business at Gibraltar, Philip's subjects were 
not safe in English harbours. Jacques le Clerc, a 
noted privateer, called Pie de Palo from his wooden 
leg, chased a Spaniard into Falmouth, and was 
allowed to take her under the guns of Pendennis. 
The Governor of the castle said that he could not 
interfere, because Le Clerc had a commission from 
the Prince of Conde. It was proved that in the 
summer of 1563 there were 400 English and 
Huguenot rovers in and about the Channel, and 
that they had taken 700 prizes between them. 
The Queen's own ships followed suit. Captain 
Cotton in the Phoenix captured an Antwerp mer- 
chantman in Flushing. The harbour-master pro- 
tested. Cotton laughed, and sailed away with his 
prize. The Regent Margaret wrote in indignation 
to Elizabeth. Such insolence, she said, was not 
to be endured. She would have Captain Cotton 
chastised as an example to all others. Elizabeth 
measured the situation more correctly than the 
Regent ; she preferred to show Philip that she was 
not afraid of him. She preferred to let her subjects 
discover for themselves that the terrible Spaniard 
before whom the world trembled was but a colossus 
stuffed with clouts. Until Philip consented to tie 
the hands of the Holy Office she did not mean to 



30 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

prevent tliem from taking the law into their own 
hands. 

Now and then, if occasion required, Elizabeth 
herself would do a little privateering on her own 
account. In the next story that I have to tell she 
appears as a principal, and her great minister, Cecil, 
as an accomplice. The Duke of Alva had suc- 
ceeded Margaret as Regent of the Netherlands, 
and was drowning heresy in its own blood. The 
Prince of Orange was making a noble fight ; but all 
went ill with him. His troops were defeated, his 
brother Louis was killed. He was still struggling, 
helped by Elizabeth's money. But the odds were 
terrible, and the only hope lay in the discontent of 
Alva's soldiers, who had not been paid their wages, 
and would not fight Avithout them. Philijj's 
finances were not floiu'ishing, but he had borrowed 
half a million ducats from a house at Genoa for 
Alva's use. The money was to be delivered in 
bullion at Antwerp. The Channel privateers heard 
that it was coming and were on the look-out for it. 
The vessel in which it was sent took refuge in 
Plymouth, but found she had run into the enemy's 
nest. Nineteen or twenty Huguenot and English 
cruisers lay round her with commissions from 
Conde to take every Catholic ship they met with. 
Elizabeth's special friends thought and said freely 
that so rich a prize ought to fall to no one but her 
Majesty. Elizabeth thought the same, but for a 
more honourable reason. It was of the highest 
consequence that the money should not reach the 



John Haivkins and the African Slave Trade 31 

Duke of Alva at that moment. Even Cecil said so, 
and sent the Prince of Orange word that it would 
be stopped in some way. 

But how could it decently be done? Bishop 
Jewel relieved the Queen's mind (if it Avas ever 
disturbed) on the moral side of the question. The 
bishop held that it would be meritorious in a high 
degree to intercept a treasure which was to be used 
in the murder of Protestant Christians. But the 
how was the problem. To let the privateers take 
it openly in Plymouth harbour would, it was felt, 
be a scandal. Sir Arthur Champernowne, the Vice- 
admiral of the West, saw the difficulty and offered 
his services. He had three vessels of his own in 
Conde's privateer fleet, under his son Henry. As 
vice-admiral he was first in command at Plymouth. 
He placed a guard on board the treasure ship, telling 
the captain it would be a discredit to the Queen's 
Government if harm befell her in English waters. 
He then wrote to Cecil. 

'If,' he said, ' it shall seem good to your honour 
that I with others shall give the attempt for her 
Majesty's use which cannot be without blood, I will 
not only take it in hand, but also receive the blame 
thereof unto myself, to the end so great a commodity 
should redound to her Grace, hoping that, after 
bitter storms of her displeasure, showed at the first to 
colour the fact, I shall find the calm of her favour 
in such sort as I am most willing to hazard myself 
to serve her Majesty. Great pity it were such a rich 
booty should escape her Grace. But surely I am 



32 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

of that miucl that anything taken from that 
wicked nation is both necessary and profitable to 
our commonwealth,' 

Very shocking on Sir Arthur's part to write such 
a letter : so many good people will think. I hope 
they will consider it equally shocking that King 
Philip should have burned English sailors at the 
stake because they were loyal to the laws of their 
own country; that he was stirring war all over 
Europe to please the Pope, and thrusting the doc- 
trines of the Council of Trent down the throats of 
mankind at the sword's point. Spain and England 
might be at peace ; Romanism and Protestantism 
Avere at deadly war, and war suspends the obliga- 
tions of ordinary life. Crimes the most horrible 
were held to be virtues in defence of the Catholic 
faith. The Catholics could not have the advantage 
of such indulgences without the inconveniences. 
The Protestant cause throughout Europe was one, 
and assailed as the Protestants were with such 
envenomed ferocity, they could not afford to be 
nicely scrupulous in the means they used to defend 
themselves. 

Sir Arthur Champernowne was not called on to 
sacrifice himself in such peculiar fashion, and a 
better expedient was found to secure Alva's money. 
The bullion was landed and Avas brought to Loudon 
by road on the plea that the seas were unsafe. It 
was carried to the Tower, and when it was once 
inside the walls it was found to remain the property 
of the Genoese until it was delivered at Antwerp. 



John Haiuhins and the African Slave Trade 33 

The Genoese agent in London was as willing to 
lend it to Elizabeth as to Philip, and indeed pre- 
ferred the security. Elizabeth calmly said that 
she had herself occasion for money, and would ac- 
cept their offer. Half of it was sent to the Prince 
of Orange ; half was spent on the Queen's navy. 

Alva was of course violently angiy. He arrested 
every English shij) in the Low Countries. He 
arrested every Englishman that he could catch, and 
sequestered all English property. Elizabeth re- 
taliated in kind. The Spanish and Flemish 
property taken in England proved to be worth 
double what had been secured by Alva. Philip 
coiild not declare war. The Netherlands insurrec- 
tion was straining his resources, and with Elizabeth 
for an open enemy the whole weight of England 
would have been thrown on the side of the Prince 
of Orange. Elizabeth herself should have declared 
war, people say, instead of condescending to 
such tricks. Perhaj)S so ; but also perhaps not. 
These insults, steadily maintained and unresented, 
shook the faith of mankind, and especially of her 
own sailors, in the invincibility of the Spanish 
colossus. 

I am now to turn to another side of the subject. 
The stories which I have told you show the temper 
of the time, and the atmosphere which men were 
breathing, but it will be instnictive to look more 
closely at individual persons, and I will take first 
John Hawkins (afterwards Sir John), a peculiarly 

characteristic figure. 
3 



34 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

The Hawkinses of Plymontli were a solid middle- 
class Devonsliire family, who for two generations 
had taken a leading part in the business of the town. 
They still survive in the county — Achius we used 
to call them before school pronunciation came in, 
and so Philip wrote the name when the famous 
John began to trouble his dreams. I have already 
spoken of old William Hawkins, John's father, 
whom Henry VIII. was so fond of, and who brought 
over the Brazilian King. Old William liad now 
retired and had left his place and his work to his 
son. John Hawkins may have been about thirty at 
Elizabeth's accession. He had witnessed the wild 
times of Edward VI. and Mary, but, though many 
of his friends had taken to the privateering busi- 
ness, Hawkins appears to have kept clear of it, and 
continued steadily at trade. One of these friends, 
and his contemporary, and in fact his near relation, 
was Thomas Stukely, afterwards so notorious — and 
a word may be said of Stukely's career as a contrast 
to that of Hawkins. He was a younger son of a 
leading county family, went to London to seek his 
fortune, and became a hanger-on of Sir Thomas 
Seymour. Doubtless he was connected with Sey- 
mour's pirating scheme at Scilly, and took to pirating 
as an occupation like other Western gentlemen. 
When Elizabeth became Queen, he introduced him- 
self at Court and amused her with his conceit. He 
meant to be a king, nothing less than a king. He 
would go to Florida, found an empire there, and 
write to the Queen as his dearest sister. She gave 



John Hmokins and the African Slave Trade 35 

liini leave to try. He bought a vessel of 400 tons, 
got 100 tall soldiers to join liim besides tlie crew, 
and sailed from Plymouth in 1563. Once out of 
harbour, he announced that the sea was to be his 
Florida. He went back to the pirate business, 
robbed freely, haunted Irish creeks, and set up an 
intimacy with the Ulster hero, Shan O'Neil. Shan 
and Stukely became bosom friends. Shan wrote to 
Elizabeth to recommend that she should make over 
Ireland to Stukely and himseK to manage, and 
promised, if she agreed, to make it such an Ireland 
as had never been seen, which they probably would. 
Elizabeth not consenting, Stukely turned Papist, 
transferred his services to the Pope and Philip, and 
was preparing a campaign in Ireland under the 
Pope's direction, when he was tempted to join 
Sebastian of Portugal in the African expedition, and 
there got himself killed. 

Stukely was a specimen of the foolish sort of the 
young Devonshire men ; Hawkins was exactly his 
opposite. He stuck to business, avoided politics, 
traded with Spanish ports without offending the 
Holy Office, and formed intimacies and connections 
with the Canary Islands especially, where it was 
said ' he grew much in love and favour with the 
people.' 

At the Canaries he naturally heard much about 
the West Indies. He was adventurous. His Cana- 
ries friends told him that negroes were great mer- 
chandise in the Spanish settlements in Espanola, 
and he himself was intimately acquainted with the 



36 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Guinea coast, and knew how easily such a cargo 
could be obtained. 

We know to what the slave trade grew. We have 
all learnt to repent of the share which England had 
in it, and to abhor everyone whose hands were 
stained by contact with so accursed a business. All 
that may be taken for granted ; but we must look at 
the matter as it would have been represented at the 
Canaries to Hawkins himself. 

The Carib races whom the Spaniards found in 
Cuba and St. Domingo had withered before them as 
if struck by a blight. Many died under the lash of 
the Spanish overseers; many, perhaps the most, 
from the mysterious causes which have made the 
presence of civilisation so fatal to the Red Indian, 
the Australian, and the Maori. It is Avith men as it 
is with animals. The races which consent to be 
domesticated prosper and multiply. Those which 
cannot live wdthout freedom pine like caged eagles 
or disappear like the buffaloes of the prairies. 

Anyway, the natives perished out of the islands 
of the Caribbean Sea with a rapidity which startled 
the conquerors. The famous Bishop Las Casas 
pitied and tried to save the remnant that were left 
The Spanish settlers required labourers for the 
plantations. On the continent of Africa were another 
race, savage in their natural state, which would 
domesticate like sheep and oxen, and learnt and 
imjDroved in the white man's company. The negro 
never rose of himself out of barbarism; as his 
fathers were, so he remained from age to age ; when 



Jolui Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 37 

left free, as in Liberia and in Hayti, he reverts to 
his original barbarism ; while in subjection to the 
white man he showed then, and he has shown since, 
high capacities of intellect and character. Such is, 
such was the fact. It struck Las Casas that if 
negroes could be introduced into the West Indian 
islands, the Indians might be left alone ; the negroes 
themselves would have a chance to rise out of their 
wretchedness, could be made into Christians, and 
could be saved at worst from the horrid fate which 
awaited many of them in their own country. 

The black races varied like other animals : some 
were gentle and timid, some were ferocious as 
wolves. The strong tyrannised over the weak, 
made slaves of their prisoners, occasionally ate 
them, and those they did not eat they sacrificed at 
what they called their customs — offered them up 
and cut their throats at the altars of their idols. 
These customs w^ere the most sacred traditions of 
the negro race. They were suspended while the 
slave trade gave the prisoners a value. They re- 
vived when the slave trade was abolished. When 
Lord Wolseley a few years back entered Ashantee, 
the altars were coated thick with the blood of 
hundreds of miserable beings who had been freshly 
slaughtered there. Still later similar horrid scenes 
were reported from Dahomey. Sir Richard Burton, 
who was an old acquaintance of mine, spent two 
months with the King of Dahomey, and dilated to 
me on the benevolence and enlightenment of that 
excellent monarch. I asked why, if the King was 



38 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

so benevolent, he did not alter the customs. Bui*ton 
looked at me with consternation. ' Alter the cus- 
toms ! ' he said. ' Would you have the Archbishop 
of Canterbury alter the Liturgy ? ' Las Casas and 
those who thought as he did are not to be charged 
with infamous inhumanity if they proposed to buy 
these poor creatures from their captors, save them 
from Mumbo Jumbo, and carry them to countries 
where they would be valuable property, and be at 
least as well cared for as the mules and horses. 

The experiment was tried and seemed to suc- 
ceed. The negroes who were rescued from the 
customs and were carried to the Spanish islands 
proved docile and useful. Portuguese and Spanish 
factories were established on the coast of Guinea. 
The black chiefs were glad to make money out of 
their wretched victims, and readily sold them. 
The transport over the Atlantic became a regular 
branch of business. Strict laws were made for the 
good treatment of the slaves on the plantations. 
The trade was carried on under license from the 
Government, and an import duty of thirty ducats 
per head was charged on every negro that was 
landed. I call it an experiment. The full conse- 
quences could not be foreseen, and I cannot see 
that as an experiment it merits the censures which 
in its later developments it eventually came to 
deserve. Las Casas, who approved of it, was one 
of the most excellent of men. Our own Bishop 
Butler could give no decided opinion against negro 
slavery as it existed in his time. It is absurd to 



John Hawhins and the African Slave Trade 39 

say that ordinary mercliants and ship captains 
ouglit to have seen the infamy of a practice which 
Las Casas advised and Butler could not condemn. 
The Spanish and Portuguese Governments claimed, 
as I said, the control of the traffic. The Spanish 
settlers in the West Indies objected to a restriction 
which raised the price and shortened the supply.^ 
They considered that having established themselves \ 
in a new country they had a right to a voice in the | 
conditions of their occupancy. It was thus that | 
the Spaniards in the Canaries represented the 1 
matter to John Hawkins. They told him that if 
he liked to make the venture with a contraband 
cargo from Guinea, their countrymen would give 
him an enthusiastic welcome. It is evident from 
the story that neither he nor they expected that 
serious offence would be taken at Madrid. Hawkins 
at this time was entirely friendly with the Span- 
iards. It was enough if he could be assured that 
the colonists would be glad to deal with him, 

I am not crediting liim with the benevolent pur- 
poses of Las Casas. I do not suppose Hawkins 
thought much of saving black men's souls. He 
saw only an opportunity of extending his business 
among a people with whom he was already largely 
connected. The traffic was established. It had 
the sanction of the Church, and no objection had 
been raised to it anywhere on the score of morality. 
The only question which could have presented itself 
to Hawkins was of the right of the Spanish Govern- 
ment to prevent foreigners from getting a share of 



40 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

a lucrative trade against the wishes of its subjects. 
And his friends at the Canaries certainly did not 
lead him to expect any real opposition. One 
regi'ets that a famous Englishman should have 
been connected with the slave trade ; but we have 
no right to heap violent censures upon him because 
he was no more enlightened than the wisest of his 
contemporaries. 

Thus, encouraged from Santa Cruz, Hawkins on 
his return to England formed an African company 
out of the leading citizens of London. Three 
vessels were fitted out, Hawkins being commander 
and part owner. The size of them is remarkable : 
the Solomon, as the largest was called, 120 tons; 
the Sioallow, 100 tons ; the Jonas not above 40 tons. 
This represents them as inconceivably small. They 
carried between them a hundred men, and ample 
room had to be provided besides for the blacks. 
There may have been a difference in the measure- 
ment of tonnage. We ourselves have five stand- 
ards : builder's measurement, yacht measurement, 
displacement, sail area, and register measurement. 
Registered tonnage is far under the others : a yacht 
registered 120 tons would be called 200 in a ship- 
ping list. However that be, the brigantines and 
sloops used by the Elizabethans on all adventurous 
expeditions were mere boats compared with what 
we should use now on such occasions. The reason 
was obvious. Success depended on speed and 
sailing power. The art of building big square- 
rigged ships w^hich would work to windward had 



John Hawkins and the African Slave Trade 41 

not been yet discovered, even by Mr. Fletcher of 
Rye. The fore-and-aft rig alone would enable a 
vessel to tack, as it is called, and this could only be 
used with craft of moderate tonnage. 

The expedition sailed in October 1562. They 
called at the Canaries, where they were warmly 
entertained. They went on to Sierra Leone, where 
they collected 300 negroes. They avoided the 
Government factories, and picked them up as they 
could, some by force, some by negotiation with 
local chiefs, who were as ready to sell their subjects 
as Sancho Panza intended to be when he got his 
island. They crossed without misadventure to St. 
Domingo, where Hawkins represented that he was 
on a voyage of discovery ; that he had been driven 
out of his course and wanted food and money. He 
said he had certain slaves with him, which he asked 
permission to sell. What he had heard at the 
Canaries tm'ued out to be exactly true. So far as 
the Governor of St. Domingo knew, Spain and Eng- 
land were at peace. Privateers had not troubled 
the peace of the Caribbean Sea, or dangerous here- 
tics menaced the Catholic faith there. Inquisitors 
might have been suspicious, but the Inquisition had 
not yet been established beyond the Atlantic. The 
Queen of England was his sovereign's sister-in-law, 
and the Governor saw no reason why he should 
construe his general instructions too literally. The 
planters were eager to buy, and he did not wish to 
be unpopular. He allowed Hawkins to sell two 
hundred out of his three hundred negroes, leaving 



42 English Seatnen in the Sixteenth Century 

the remaining hundred as a deposit should question 
be raised about the duty. Evidently the only doubt 
in the Governor's mind was whether the Madrid 
authorities would charge foreign importers on a 
higher scale. The question was new. No stranger 
had as yet attempted to trade there. 

Everyone was satisfied, except the negroes, who 
were not asked their opinion. The profits were 
enormous. A ship in the harbour was about to sail 
for Cadiz. Hawkins invested most of what he had 
made in a cargo of hides, for which, as he under- 
stood, there was a demand in Spain, and he sent 
them over in her in charge of one of his partners. 
The Governor gave him a testimonial for good con- 
duct during his stay in the port, and with this and 
with his three vessels he returned leisurely to Eng- 
land, having, as he imagined, been splendidly suc- 
cessful. 

He was to be unpleasantly mideceived. A few 
days after he had arrived at Plymouth, he met the 
man whom he had sent to Cadiz with the hides for- 
lorn and empty-handed. The Inquisition, he said, 
had seized the cargo and confiscated it. An order 
had been sent to St. Domingo to forfeit the reserved 
slaves. He himself had escaped for his life, as the 
familiars had been after him. 

Nothing shows more clearly how little thought 
there had been in Hawkins that his voyage would 
have given offence in Spain than the astonishment 
with which he heard the news. He protested. He 
wrote to Philij). Finding entreaties useless, he 



John HatvMns ami the African Slave Trade 43 

swore vengeance ; but threats were equally ineffect- 
ual. Not a hide, not a farthing could he recover. 
The Spanish Government, terrified at the intrusion 
of English adventui'ers into their western paradise 
to endanger the gold fleets, or worse to endanger 
the purity of the faith, issued orders more peremj)- 
tory than ever to close the ports there against all 
foreigners. Philip personally warned Sir Thomas 
Chaloner, the English ambassador, that if such 
visits were repeated, mischief would come of it. 
And Cecil, who disliked all such semi-piratical 
enterprises, and Chaloner, who was half a Spaniard 
and an old companion in arms of Charles V., en- 
treated their mistress to forbid them. 

Elizabeth, however, had her own views in such 
matters. She liked money. She liked encouraging 
the adventm'ous disposition of her subjects, who 
were fighting the State's battles at their own risk 
and cost. She saw in Philip's anger a confession 
that the West Indies was his vulnerable point ; and 
that if she wished to frighten him into letting her 
alone, and to keep the Inquisition from burning her 
sailors, there was the place where Philip would be 
more sensitive. Probably, too, she thought that 
Hawkins had done nothing for which he could be 
justly blamed. He had traded at St. Domingo with 
the Governor's consent, and confiscation was sharp 
practice. 

This was clearly Hawkins's own view of the matter. 
He had injured no one. He had offended no pious ears 
by parading his Protestantism. He was not Philip's 



44 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

subject, and was not to be expected to know the in- 
structions given by tlie Spanish Government in the 
remote corners of their dominions. If anyone was 
to be punished, it was not he but tlie Governor. He 
held that he had been robbed, and had a right 
to indemnify himself at the King's expense. He 
would go out again. He was certain of a cordial 
reception from the planters. Between him and 
them there was the friendliest understanding. His 
quarrel was with Philip, and Philij? only. He 
meant to sell a fresh cargo of negroes, and the 
Madrid Government should go without their 30 per 
cent. duty. 

Elizabeth approved. Hawkins had opened the 
road to the West Indies. He had shown how easy 
slave smuggling was, and how profitable it was; 
how it was also possible for the English to establish 
friendly relations with the Spanish settlers in the 
West Indies, whether Philip liked it or not. An- 
other company was formed for a second trial. Eliza- 
beth took shares, Lord Pembroke took shares, and 
other members of the Council. The Queen lent the 
Jesus, a large ship of her own, of 700 tons. Formal 
instnictions were given that no wrong was to be 
done to the King of Spain, but what wrong might 
mean was left to the discretion of the commander. 
Where the planters Avere all eager to purchase, 
means of traffic would be discovered without collis- 
ion with the authorities. This time the expedition 
was to be on a larger scale, and a hundred soldiers 
were put on board to provide for contingencies. 



John Haivhins and the African Slave Trade 45 

Thus furnished, Hawkins started on his second 
voyage in October 1564. The autumn was chosen, 
to avoid the extreme tropical heats. He touched as 
before to see his friends at the Canaries. He went 
on to the Rio Grande, met with adventures bad and 
good, found a chief at war with a neighbouring 
tribe, helped to capture a town and take prisoners, 
made purchases at a Portuguese factory. In this 
way he now secured 400 human cattle, perhaps for a 
better fate than they would have met with at home, 
and with these he sailed off in the old direction. 
Near the equator he fell in with calms ; he was short 
of water, and feared to lose some of them ; but, as 
the record of the voyage puts it, ' Almighty God 
would not suffer His elect to perish,' and sent a 
breeze which carried him safe to Dominica. In 
that wettest of islands he found water in plenty, and 
had then to consider what next he would do. St. 
Domingo, he thought, would be no longer safe for 
hun ; so he struck across to the Spanish Main to a 
place called Burboroata, where he might hope that 
nothing would be known about him. In this he was 
mistaken. Philip's orders had arrived : no English- 
man of any creed or kind was to be allowed to trade 
in his West India dominions. The settlers, how- 
ever, intended to trade. They required only a dis- 
play of force that they might pretend that they were 
yielding to compulsion. Hawkins told his old story. 
He said that he was out on the service of tke Queen 
of England. He had been driven off his course by 
bad weather. He was short of supplies and had 



46 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

many men on board, who might do the town some 
mischief if they were not allowed to land peace- 
ably and buy and sell what they wanted. The Gov- 
ernor affecting to hesitate, he threw 120 men on 
shore, and brought his guns to bear on the castle. 
The Governor gave way under protest. Hawkins 
was to be permitted to sell half his negroes. He 
said that as he had been treated so inhospitably he 
would not pay the 30 per cent. The King of Spain 
should have 7^, and no more. The settlers had no 
objection. The price would be the less, and with this 
deduction his business was easily finished off. He 
bought no more hides, and Avas paid in solid silver. 

From Burboroata he went on to Rio de la Haclia, 
where the same scene was repeated. The whole 
400 were disposed of, this time with ease and com- 
plete success. He had been rapid, and had the 
season still before him. Having finished his busi- 
ness, he surveyed a large part of the Caribbean Sea, 
taking soundings, noting the currents, and making 
charts of the coasts and islands. This done, he 
turned homewards, following the east shore of North 
America as far as Newfoundland. There he gave 
his crew a change of diet, with fresh cod from the 
Banks, and after eleven months' absence he sailed 
into Padstow, having lost but twenty men in the 
whole adventure, and bringing back GO per cent, to 
the Queen and the other shareholders. 

Nothing succeeds like success. Hawkins's praises 
were in everyone's mouth, and in London he was 
the hero of the hour. Elizabeth received him at 



John Haiohins and the African Slave Trade 47 

the palace. The Spanish ambassador, De Silva, 
met him there at dinner. He talked freely of where 
he had been and of Avliat he had done, only keeping 
back the gentle violence which he had used. He 
regarded this as a mere farce, since there had been 
no one hurt on either side. He boasted of having 
given the greatest satisfaction to the Spaniards who 
had dealt with him. De Silva could but bow, report 
to his master, and ask instructions how he was to 
proceed. 

Philip was frightfully disturbed. He saw in 
prospect his western subjects allying themselves 
with the English — heresy creeping in among them ; 
his gold fleets in danger, all the possibilities with 
which Elizabeth had wished to alarm him. He 
read and re-read De Silva's letters, and opposite the 
name of Achines he wrote startled interjections on 
the margin : ' Ojo ! Ojo ! ' 

The political horizon was just then favourable to 
Elizabeth. The Queen of Scots was a prisoner in 
Loch Leven ; the Netherlands were in revolt ; the 
Huguenots were looking up in France ; and when 
Hawkins proposed a third expedition, she thought 
that she could safely allow it. She gave him the 
use of the Jesus again, with another smaller ship of 
hers, the Minion. He had two of his own still fit 
for work ; and a fifth, the Judith, was brought in 
by his young cousin, Francis Drake, who was now 
to make his first appearance on the stage. I shall 
tell you by - and - by who and what Drake was. 
Enough to say now that he was a relation of Haw- 



48 EiKjUsh Seamen in the Sixteenth Centunj 

kius, the owner of a small smart sloop or brigautiue, 
and ambitious of a share in a stirring business. 

The Plymouth seamen were falling into danger- 
ous contempt of Philip. While the expedition was 
fitting out, a ship of the King's came into Catwater 
with more prisoners from Flanders. She was flying 
the Castilian flag, contrary to rule, it w^as said, in 
English harbours. The treatment of the English 
ensign at Gibraltar had not been forgiven, and 
Hawkins ordered the Spanish captain to strike his 
colours. The captain refused, and Hawkins in- 
stantly fired into him. In the confusion the pris- 
oners escaped on board the Jesus and were let go. 
The captain sent a complaint to London, and Cecil 
— who disapproved of Hawkins and all his proceed- 
ings — sent down an officer to inquire into what had 
happened. Hawkins, confident in Elizabeth's pro- 
tection, quietly answered that the Spaniard had 
broken the laws of the port, and that it was neces- 
sary to assert the Queen's authority. 

' Your mariners,' said De Silva to her, ' rob our 
subjects on the sea, trade wdiere they are forbidden 
to go, and fire upon our ships in your harbours. 
Your preachers insult my master from their pulpits, 
and wdien we remonstrate we are answered with 
menaces. AVe have borne so far with their injuries, 
attributing them rather to temper and bad manners 
than to deliberate purpose. But, seeing that no 
redress can be had, and that the same treatment 
of us continues, I must consult my Sovereign's 
pleasure. For the last time, I require your Majesty 



John Hawldns and the African Slave Trade 49 

to punish this outrage at Plymouth and preserve 
the peace between the two realms.' ■ 

No remonstrance could seem more just till the 
other side was heard. The other side was that the 
Pope and the Catholic powers were undertaking to 
force the Protestants of France and Flanders back 
under the Papacy with fire and sword. It was no 
secret that England's turn was to follow as soon as 
Philip's hands were free. Meanwhile he had been 
intriguing with the Queen of Scots ; he had been 
encouraging Ireland in rebellion ; he had been per- 
secuting English merchants and seamen, starving 
them to death in the Inquisition dungeons, or burn- 
ing; them at the stake. The Smithfield infamies 
were fresh in Protestant memories, and who could 
tell how soon the horrid work would begin again at 
home, if the Catholic powers could have their way ? 

If the King of Spain and his Holiness at Rome 
would have allowed other nations to think and 
make laws for themselves, pirates and privateers 
would have disappeared off the ocean. The West 
Indies would have been left undisturbed, and Span- 
ish, English, French, and Flemings would have 
lived peacefully side by side as they do now. But 
spiritual tyranny had not yet learned its lesson, and 
the ' Beggars of the Sea ' were to be Philip's school- 
masters in irregular but effective fashion. 

Elizabeth listened politely to what De Silva 

said, promised to examine into his complaints, and 

allowed Hawkins to sail. 

What befell him you will hear in the next lecture. 
4 



LECTUEE III 

SIR JOHN HAWKINS AND PHILIP THE SECOND 

My last lecture left Hawkins preparing to start on 
his third and, as it proved, most eventful voyage. 
I mentioned that he was joined by a young relation, 
of whom I must say a few preliminary words. 
Francis Drake was a Devonshire man, like Hawkins 
himself and Raleigh and Davis and Gilbert, and 
many other famous men of those days. He was 
born at Tavistock somewhere about 15-40. He 
told Camden that he was of mean extraction. He 
meant merely that he was proud of his parents and 
made no idle pretensions to noble birth. His father 
was a tenant of the Earl of Bedford, and must have 
stood well with him, for Francis Russell, the heir 
of the earldom, was the boy's godfather. From 
him Drake took his Christian name. The Drakes 
were early converts to Protestantism. Trouble 
rising at Tavistock on the Six Articles Bill, they 
removed to Kent, where the father, probably 
through Lord Bedford's influence, was appointed a 
lay chaplain in Henry VIII. 's fleet at Chatham. 
In the next reign, when the Protestants were upper- 
most, he was ordained and became vicar of Upnor 
on the Medway. Young Francis took early to the 



Sir John Hawkins and Philip the Second 51 

water, and made acquaintance with a ship-master 
trading to the Channel ports, who took him on 
board his ship and bred him as a sailor. The boy 
distinguished himself, and his patron when he died 
left Drake his vessel in his will. For several years 
Drake stuck steadily to his coasting work, made 
money, and made a solid reputation. His ambition 
grew with his success. The seagoing English were 
all full of Hawkins and his West Indian exploits. 
The Hawkinses and the Drakes were near relations. 
Hearing that there was to be another expedition, 
and having obtained his cousin's consent, Francis 
Drake sold his brig, bought the Judith, a handier 
and faster vessel, and with a few stout sailors from 
the river went down to Plymouth and joined. 

De Silva had sent word to Philip that Hawkins 
was again going out, and preparations had been 
made to receive him. Suspecting nothing, Hawkins 
with his four consorts sailed, as before, in October 
1507. The start was ominous. He was caught 
and badly knocked about by an equinoctial in the 
Bay of Biscay. He lost his boats. The Jesus 
strained her timbers and leaked, and he so little 
liked the looks of things that he even thought of 
turning back and giving up the expedition for the 
season. However, the weather mended. They put 
themselves to rights at the Canaries, picked up 
their spirits, and proceeded. The slave-catching 
was managed successfully, though with some 
increased difficulty. The cargo with equal success 
was disposed of at the Spanish settlements. At 



52 Eiiglish Seamen in the Sixteenih Century 

one place the planters came off in their boats at 
night to buy. At liio de la Haclia, where the most 
imperative orders had been sent to forbid his 
admittance, Hawkins landed a force as before and 
took possession of the town, of course with the 
connivance of the settlers. At Carthagena he was 
similarly ordered off, and as Carthagena was 
strongly fortified he did not venture to meddle with 
it. But elsewhere he found ample markets for his 
wares. He sold all his blacks. By this and by 
other dealings he had collected what is described 
as a vast treasure of gold, silver, and jewels. The 
hurricane season was approaching, and he made the 
best of his way homewards with his spoils, in the 
fear of being overtaken by it. Unluckily for him, 
he had lingered too long. He had passed the west 
point of Cuba and was working up the back of the 
island when a hurricane came down on him. The 
gale lasted four days. The ships' bottoms were 
foul and they could make no way. Spars were lost 
and rigging carried away. The Jesus, which had 
not been seaworthy all along, leaked worse than 
ever and lost her rudder. Hawkins looked for some 
port in Florida, but found the coast shallow and 
dangerous, and was at last obliged to run for San 
Juan de UUoa, at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. 
San Juan de Ulloa is a few miles only from 
Vera Cruz. It was at that time the chief port of 
Mexico, through which all the traffic passed between 
the colony and the mother-country, and was thus a 
place of some consequence. It stands on a small 



Sir John Hawkins and Philip the Second 53 

bay facing towards the north. Across the mouth 
of this bay lies a narrow ridge of sand and shingle, 
half a mile long, which acts as a natural break- 
water and forms the harbour. This ridge, or island 
as it was called, was uninhabited, but it had been 
faced on the inner front by a wall. The water was 
deej) alongside, and vessels could thus lie in perfect 
security, secured by their cables to rings let into 
the masonr3\ 

The prevailing wind was from the north, bringing 
in a heavy surf on the back of the island. There 
was an opening at both ends, but only one available 
for vessels of large draught. In this the channel 
was narrow, and a battery at the end of the break- 
water would completely command it. The town 
stood on the opposite side of the bay. 

Into a Spanish port thus constructed Hawkins 
entered Avith his battered squadron on September 
16, 1568. He could not have felt entirely easy. But 
he probably thought that he had no ill-will to fear 
from the inhabitants generally, and that the Spanish 
authorities would not be strong enough to meddle 
with him. His ill star had brought him there at a 
time when Alvarez de Ba9an, the same officer w^ho 
had destroyed the English ships at Gibraltar, was 
daily expected from Spain — sent by Philip, as it 
proved, especially to look for him. Hawkins, when 
he appeared outside, had been mistaken for the 
Spanish admiral, and it was under this impression 
that he had been allowed to enter. The error was 
quickly discovered on both sides. 



5-i EiKjlish Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Though still ignorant that he was himself De 
Bagan's particular object, jet De Bagan was the last 
of&cer whom in his crijDpled condition he would 
have cared to encounter. Several Spanish mer- 
chantmen were in the port richly loaded : with these 
of course he did not meddle, though, if reinforced, 
they might perhaps meddle with him. As his best 
resom-ce he despatched a courier on the instant to 
Mexico to inform the Viceroy of his arrival, to say 
that he had an English squadron with him ; that he 
had been driven in by stress of weather and need of 
repairs ; that the Queen was an ally of the King of 
Spain ; and that, as he understood a Spanish fleet 
was likely soon to arrive, he begged the Viceroy to 
make arrangements to prevent disputes. 

As yet, as I said in the last lecture, there was no 
Inquisition in Mexico. It Avas established there 
three years later, for the special benefit of the Eng- 
lish. But so far there was no ill-will towards the 
English — rather the contrary. Hawkins had hurt 
no one, and the negro trading had been eminently 
popular. The Viceroy might perhaps have connived 
at Hawkins's escape, but again by ill-fortune he was 
himself under orders of recall, and his successor 
was coming out in this particular fleet with De 
Ba§an. 

Had he been well disposed and free to act it would 
still have been too late, for the very next morning, 
September 17, De Ba§an was off the harbour mouth 
with thirteen heavily armed galleons and frigates. 
The smallest of them carried probably 200 men, and 



Sir John Haiohins and Philip the Second 55 

the odds were now tremendous. Hawkins's vessels 
lay ranged along tlie inner bank or wall of the island. 
He instantly occupied the island itself and mounted 
guns at the point covering the way in. He then sent 
a boat off to De Ba§an to say that he was an English- 
man, that he was in possession of the port, and must 
forbid the entrance of the Spanish fleet tiU he was 
assured that there was to be no violence. It was a 
strong measiu-e to shut a Spanish admiral out of a 
Spanish port in a time of profound peace. Still, the 
way in was difficult, and could not be easily forced 
if resolutely defended. The northerly wind was ris- 
ing ; if it blew into a gale the Spaniards would be on 
a lee shore. Under desperate circumstances, des- 
perate things will be done. Hawkins in his subse- 
quent report thus explains his dilemma : — 

'I was in two difficulties. Either I must keep 
them out of the port, which with God's grace I could 
easily have done, in which case with a northerly 
wind rising they would have been wrecked, and I 
should have been ansAverable ; or I must risk their 
playing false, which on the whole I preferred 
to do.' 

The northerly gale it appears did not rise, or the 
English commander might have preferred the first 
alternative. Three days passed in negotiation. De 
Bagan and Don Enriquez, the new Viceroy, were 
naturally anxious to get into shelter out of a dan- 
gerous position, and were equally desirous not to 
promise any more than was absolutely necessary. 
The final agreement was that De Ba^an and the fleet 



56 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

should enter without opposition. Hawkins might 
stay till he had repaired his damages, and buy and 
sell what he wanted ; and further, as long as they 
remained the English were to keep possession of 
the island. This article, Hawkins says, was long 
resisted, but was consented to at last. It was abso- 
lutely necessary, for with the island in their hands, 
the Spaniards had only to cut the English cables, 
and they would have driven ashore across the 
harbour. 

The treaty so drawn was formally signed. Host- 
ages were given on both sides, aud De Ba§an came 
in. The two fleets were moored as far apart from 
each other as the size of the port would allow. 
Courtesies were exchanged, and for two dajs all 
went well. It is likely that the Viceroy and the 
admiral did not at first know that it was the very 
man whom they had been sent out to sink or cap- 
ture who was lying so close to them. When they 
did know it they may have looked on him as a 
pirate, with whom, as with heretics, there was no 
need to keep faith. Any way, the rat was in the 
trap, and De Bacan did not mean to let him out. 
The Jesus lay furthest in ; the Minion lay beyond 
her towards the entrance, moored apparently to a 
ring on the quay, but free to move ; and the Judith, 
further out again, moored in the same way. Noth- 
ing is said of the two small vessels remaining. 

De Ba9an made his preparations silently, covered 
by the town. He had men in abundance ready to 
act where he should direct. On the third day, the 



>S'/>' John Hawkins and Pliilip the Second 57 

20th of September, at noon, the Minions crew had 
gone to dinner, when they saw a large hulk of 900 
tons slowly towing up alongside of them. Not 
liking such a neighboiu*, they had their cable ready 
to slip and began to set their canvas. On a sudden 
shots and cries were heard from the town. Parties 
of English who were on land were set upon ; many 
Avere killed ; the rest were seen flinging themselves 
into the water and swimming off to the ships. At 
the same instant the guns of the galleons and of the 
shore batteries opened fire on the Jesus and her 
consorts, and in the smoke and confusion 300 Sj)an- 
iards swarmed out of the hulk and sprang on the 
Minions decks. The ^Union's men instantly cut 
them down or drove them overboard, hoisted sail, 
and forced their way out of the harbour, followed by 
the Judith. The Jesus was left alone, unable to stir. 
She defended herself desperately. In the many 
actions which were fought afterwards between the 
English and the Spaniards, there was never any 
more gallant or more severe. De Bac^an's own ship 
was sunk and the vice-admiral's was set on lire. 
The Spanish, having an enormous advantage in 
numbers, were able to land a force on the island, 
seize the English battery there, cut down the gun- 
ners, and turn the guns close at hand on the devoted 
Jesus. Still she fought on, defeating every attempt 
to board, till at length De Bagan sent down fire- 
ships on her, and then the end came. All that 
Hawkins had made by his voyage, money, bullion, 
the ship herself, had to be left to their fate. Haw- 



58 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Ccniury 

kins himself with the survivors of the crew took to 
their boats, dashed through the enemy, who vainly 
tried to take them, and struggled out after the 
Minion and the Judith. It speaks ill for De Ba^an 
that with so large a force at his command, and in 
such a position, a single Englishman escaped to tell 
the story. 

Even when outside Hawkins's situation was still 
critical and might well be called desperate. The 
Judith was but fifty tons; the Minion not above 
a hundred. They were now crowded up with men. 
They had little water on board, and there had been 
no time to refill their store-chests, or fit themselves 
for sea. Happily the weather was moderate. If 
the wind had risen, nothing could have saved them. 
They anchored two miles off to put themselves in 
some sort of order. The Spanish fleet did not vent- 
ure to molest further so desperate a foe. On Sat- 
urday the 25th they set sail, scarcely knowing 
whither to turn. To attempt an ocean voyage as 
they were would be certain destruction, yet they 
could not trust longer to De Bagan's cowardice or 
forbearance. There was supposed to be a shelter of 
some kind somewhere on the east side of the Gulf 
of Mexico, where it was hoped they might obtain 
provisions. They reached the place on October 8, 
but found nothing. English sailors have never been 
wanting in resolution. They knew that if they all 
remained on board every one of them must starve. 
A hundred volunteered to land and take their 
chance. The rest on short rations might hope to 



Sir John Hawkins and Pliilip the Second 59 

make their way home. The sacrifice Avas accepted. 
The hundi-ecl men were put on shore. They wan- 
dered for a few days in the wooils, feeding on roots 
and berries, and shot at by the Indians. At length 
they reached a Spanish station, where they were 
taken and sent as prisoners to Mexico. There was, 
as I said, no Holy Office as yet in Mexico. The new 
Viceroy, though he had been in the fight at San 
Juan de Ulloa, was not implacable. They were 
treated at first with humanity ; they were fed, 
clothed, taken care of, and then distributed among 
the plantations. Some were employed as overseers, 
some as mechanics. Others, who understood any 
kind of business, were allowed to settle in towns, 
make money, and even marry and establish them- 
selves. Perhaps Philip heard of it, and was afraid 
that so many heretics might introduce the plague. 
The quiet time lasted three years ; at the end of 
those years the Inquisitors arrived, and then, as if 
these poor men had been the special object of that 
delightful institution, they were himted up, thrown 
into dungeons, examined on their faith, tortured, 
some burnt in an aido da fe, some lashed through 
the streets of Mexico naked on horseback and 
returned to their prisons. Those who did not die 
under this pious treatment were passed over to the 
Holy Office at Seville, and were condemned to the 
galleys. 

Here I leave them for the moment. We shall 
presently hear of them again in a very singular 
connection. The Minion and Judith meanwhile 



60 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

pursued their melanclioly way. They parted com- 
pany. The Judith, being the better sailer, arrived 
first, and reached Plymouth in December, torn and 
tattered. Drake rode off post immediately to carry 
the bad news to London. The Minions fate was 
worse. She made her course through the Bahama 
Channel, her crew dying as if struck with a pesti- 
lence, till at last there were hardly men enough left 
to handle the sails. They fell too far south for 
England, and at length had to put into Vigo, Avhere 
their probable fate would be a Spanish prison. 
Happily they found other English vessels in the 
roads there. Fresh hands were put on board, and 
fresh provisions. With these supplies Hawkins 
reached Mount's Bay a month later than the Judith, 
in January 1569. 

Drake had told the story, and all England Avas 
ringing with it. Englishmen always think their 
own countrymen are in the right. The Sjoaniards, 
already in evil odour with the sea-going population, 
were accused of abominable treachery. The splen- 
did fight which Hawkins had made raised him into a 
national idol, and though he had suffered financially, 
his loss Avas made up in reputation and authority. 
Every privateer in the West was eager to serve 
under the leadership of the hero of San Juan de 
UUoa. He speedily found himself in command of 
a large irregular squadron, andcA^en Cecil recognised 
his consequence. His chief and constant anxiety 
was for the comrades whom he had left behind, and 
he talked of a neAV expedition to recover them, or 



Sir John Haiohins and Philip the Second 61 

revenge them if tliey had been killed; but all 
things had to wait. They probably fomid means 
of communicating with him, and as long as there 
was no Inquisition in Mexico, he may have learnt 
that there was no immediate occasion for ac- 
tion. 

Elizabeth put a brave face on her disappointment. 
She knew that she was surrounded with treason, but 
she knew also that the boldest course was the 
safest. She had taken Alva's money, and was less 
than ever inclined to restore it. She had the best of 
the bargain in the arrest of the Spanish and English 
ships and cargoes. Alva would not encourage Philip 
to declare war with England till the Netherlands 
were completely reduced, and Philip, with his leaden 
foot (pie de plomo), always preferred patience and 
intrigue. Time and he and the Pope were three 
powers which in the end, he thought, would prove 
irresistible, and indeed it seemed, after Hawkins's 
return, as if Philip would turn out to be right. The 
presence of the Queen of Scots in England had set 
in flame the Catholic nobles. The wages of Alva's 
troops had been wrung somehow out of the wretched 
Provinces, and his supreme ability and inexorable 
resolution were steadily grinding down the revolt. 
Every port in Holland and Zealand was in Alva's 
hands. Elizabeth's throne was undermined by the 
Ridolfi conspiracy, the most dangerous which she 
had ever had to encounter. The only Protestant 
fighting power left on the sea which could be en- 
tirely depended on was in the privateer fleet, sail- 



62 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

ing, most of them, under a commission from the 
Prince of Orange. 

This fleet was the strangest phenomenon in 
naval history. It was half Dutcli, half English, 
with a flavour of Huguenot, and was commanded 
by a Flemish noble, Count de la Mark. Its head- 
quarters were in the Downs or Dover Eoads, where 
it could watch the narrow seas, and seize every 
Spanish ship that passed which was not too strong 
to be meddled mth. The cargoes taken were 
openly sold in Dover market. If the Spanish 
ambassador is to be believed in a complaint which 
he addressed to Cecil, Spanish gentlemen taken 
prisoners were set up to j)^^blic auction there for 
the ransom which they would fetch, and were dis- 
posed of for one hundred pounds each. If Alva 
sent cruisers from Antwerp to burn them out, they 
retreated under the guns of Dover Castle. Koving 
squadrons of them flew do'WTi to the Spanish coasts, 
pillaged churches, carried off church plate, and the 
captains drank success to piracy at their banquets 
out of chalices. The Spanish merchants at last 
estimated the property destroyed at three mill- 
ion ducats, and they said that if their flag could 
no longer protect them, they must decline to make 
fmiher contracts for the supply of the Netherlands 
army. 

It was life or death to Elizabeth. The Piidolfi 
plot, an elaborate and far-reaching couspirac}^ to 
give her crown to Mary Stuart and to make away 
with heresy, was all but complete. The Pope and 



Sir John Haivkins and Philip the Second 63 

Philip had approved ; Alva was to invade ; the 
Duke of Norfolk was to head au insurrection in the 
Eastern Counties. Never had she been in greater 
danger. Elizabeth was herself to be murdered. 
The intention was known, but the particulars of 
the conspiracy had been kept so secret that she had 
not evidence enough to take measures to protect 
herself. The privateers at Dover were a sort of 
protection ; they would at least make Alva's crossing 
more difficult ; but the most pressing exigency was 
the discovery of the details of the treason. Nothing 
was to be gained by concession ; the only salvation 
was in daring. 

At Antwerp there was a certain Doctor Story, 
maintained by Alva there to keep a watch on 
English heretics. Story had been a persecutor 
under Mary, and had defended heretic burning in 
Elizabeth's first Parliament. He had refused the 
oath of allegiance, had left the country, and had 
taken to treason. Cecil wanted evidence, and this 
man he knew could give it. A pretended informer 
brought Story word that there was an English 
vessel in the Scheldt which he would find worth 
examining. Story was tempted on board. The 
hatches were closed over him. He was delivered 
two days after at the Tower, when his secrets were 
squeezed out of him by the rack and he was then 
hanged. 

Something was learnt, but less still than Cecil 
needed to take measures to protect the Queen. And 
now once more, and in a new character, we are to 



64 English Seamen in ike Sixteenth Century 

meet John Hawkins. Three years had passed since 
the catastrophe at San Juan de Ulloa. He had 
learnt to his sorrow that his poor companions had 
fallen into the hands of the H0I3' Office at last ; had 
been burnt, lashed, starved in dungeons or worked 
in chains in the Seville yards ; and his heart, not 
a very tender one, bled at the thoughts of them. 
The finest feature in the seamen of those days Avas 
their devotion to one another. Hawkins determined 
that, one way or other, these old comrades of his 
should be rescued. Entreaties were useless ; force 
was impossible. There might still be a chance with 
cunning. He would risk anything, even the loss of 
his soul, to save them. 

De Silva had left England. The Spanish am- 
bassador was now Don Guerau or Gerald de Espes, 
and to him had fallen the task of watching and 
directing the conspirac}'. Philip was to give the 
signal, the Duke of Norfolk and other Catholic 
peers were to rise and proclaim the Queen of Scots. 
Success would depend on the extent of the dis- 
affection in England itself ; and the ambassador's 
business was to welcome and encourage all 
symptoms of discontent. Hawkins knew generally 
what was going on, and he saw in it an opportunity 
of approaching Philip on his weak side. Having 
been so much in the Canaries, he probably spoke 
Spanish fluently. He called on Don Guerau, 
and with audacious coolness represented that 
he and many of his friends were dissatisfied with 
the Queen's service. He said he had found her 



Sir John Haivhins and PlilJip the Second Q^^ 

faithless and ungrateful, and lie and they would 
gladly transfer their allegiance to the King of 
Spain, if the King of Spain would receive them. 
For himself, he would undertake to bring over the 
whole privateer fleet of the West, and in return he 
asked for nothing but the release of a few poor 
English seamen who were in prison at Seville. 

Don Guerau was full of the belief that the whole 
nation was ready to rebel. He eagerly swallowed 
the bait which Hawkins threw to him. He wrote 
to Alva, he wrote to Philip's secretary, Cayas, 
expatiating on the importance of securing such an 
addition to their party. It was true, he admitted, 
that Hawkins had been a pirate, but piracy was a 
common fault of the Enghsh, and no wonder when 
the Spaniards submitted to being plundered so 
meekly ; the man who was offering his services was 
bold, resolute, capable, and had great influence 
with the English sailors ; he strongly advised that 
such a recruit should be encouraged. 

Alva would not listen. Philij^, who shuddered at 
the very name of Hawkins, was incredulous. Don 
Guerau had to tell Sir John that the King at pres- 
ent declined his offer, but advised him to go himself 
to Madrid, or to send some confidential friend wdth 
assurances and explanations. 

Another figure now enters on the scene, a George 
Fitzwilliam. I do not know who he was, or why 
Hawkins chose him for his purpose. The Duke of 
Feria was one of Philip's most trusted ministers. 
He had married an English lady who had been a 



66 Englisli Seamen in the Sixieenth Century 

maid of honour to Queen Mary. It is possible that 
Fitzwilliam had some acquaintance with her or with 
her family. At any rate, he went to the Spanish 
Court ; he addressed himself to the Ferias ; he won 
their confidence, and by their means was admitted 
to an interview with Philip. He represented Haw- 
kins as a faithful Catholic who was indignant at the 
progress of heresy in England, who was eager to as- 
sist in the overthrow of Elizabeth and the elevation 
of the Queen of Scots, and was able and willing to 
carry along with him the great "Western privateer 
fleet, which had become so dreadful to the Spanish 
mind. Philip listened and was interested. It was 
only natural, he thought, that heretics should be 
robbers and pirates. If they could be recovered to 
the Church, their bad habits would leave them. The 
English navy was the most serious obstacle to the 
intended invasion. Still, Hawkins ! The Achines 
of his nightmares! It could not be. He asked 
Fitzwilliam if his friend was acquainted with the 
Queen of Scots or the Duke of Norfolk. Fitzwilliam 
was obliged to say that he was not. The credentials 
of John Hawkins were his own right hand. He 
was making the King a magnificent ofi^er : nothing 
less than a squadron of the finest ships in the 
world — not perhaps in the best condition, he added, 
with cool British impudence, owing to the Queen's 
parsimony, but easily to be put in order again if the 
King Avould pay the seamen's wages and advance 
some money for repairs. The release of a few poor 
prisoners was a small price to ask for such a service. 



Sir John Hawkins and Pldlip fhe Second G7 

The King was still wary, watching the bait like 
an old pike, but hesitating to seize it ; but the duke 
and duchess were willing to be themselves securities 
for Fitzwilliam's faith, and Philip promised at last 
that if Hawkins would send him a letter of recom- 
mendation from the Queen of Scots herself, he 
would then see what could be done. The Ferias 
were dangerously enthusiastic. They talked freely 
to Fitzwilliam of the Queen of Scots and her pros- 
pects. They trusted him with letters and presents 
to her which would secure his admittance to her 
confidence. Hawkins had sent him over for the 
single purpose of cheating Philip into releasing his 
comrades from the Inquisition; and he had been 
introduced to secrets of high political moment ; like 
Saul, the son of Kish, he had gone to seek his father's 
asses and he had found a kingdom. Fitzwilliam 
hurried home with his letters and his news. Things 
were now serious. Hawkins could act no further on 
his own responsibility. He consulted Cecil. Cecil 
consulted the Queen, and it was agreed that the 
practice, as it was called, should be carried further. 
It might lead to the discovery of the whole secret. 

Very treacherous, think some good people. Well, 
there are times when one admires even treachery — 

nee lex est justior ulla 
Quam necis artifices arte i^erire sua. 

King Philip was confessedly preparing to encourage 
an English subject in treason to his sovereign. Was 
it so wrong to hoist the engineer with his own petard ? 



68 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Was it wrong of Hamlet to fiuger the packet of 
Rosencrautz and Guildenstcrn and rewrite liis 
uncle's despatch? Let us have done with cant in 
these matters. Mary Stuart was at Sheffield Castle 
in charge of Lord Shrewsbury, and Fitzwilliam 
could not see her without an order from the Crown. 
Shrewsbury, though loyal to Elizabeth, was notori- 
ously well inclined to Mary, and therefore could not 
be taken into confidence. • In writing to him Cecil 
merely said that friends of Fitzwilliam's were in 
prison in Spain ; that if the Queen of Scots would 
intercede for them, Philip might be induced to let 
them go. He might therefore allow Fitzwilliam to 
have a private audience with that Queen. 

Thus armed, Fitzwilliam went down to Sheffield. 
He was introduced. He began with presenting 
Mary with the letters and remembrances from the 
Ferias, which at once opened her heart. It was 
impossible for her to suspect a friend of the duke 
and duchess. She was delighted at receiving a 
visitor from the Court of Spain. She was prudent 
enough to avoid dangerous confidences, but she said 
she was always pleased when she could do a service 
to Englishmen, and with all her heart would inter- 
cede for the prisoners. She wrote to Philip, she 
wrote to the duke and duchess, and gave the letters 
to Fitzwilliam to deliver. He took them to London, 
called on Don Gerald, and told him of his success. 
Don Gerald also wrote to his master, wrote un- 
guardedly, and also trusted Fitzwilliam with the 
despatch. 



Sir John Uawldns and Philip the Second G9 

The various packets were taken first to Cecil, and 
were next sliowu to tlie Queen. They were then re- 
turned to Fitzwilliam, v/ho once more went off with 
them to Madrid. If tlie letters produced the ex- 
pected effect, Cecil calmly observed that divers com- 
modities would ensue. English sailors would be 
released from the Inquisition and the galleys. The 
enemy's intentions would be discovered. If the 
King of Spain could be induced to do as Fitzwilliam 
had suggested, and assist in the repairs of the ships 
at Plymouth, credit would be obtained for a sum of 
money which could be employed to his own detri- 
ment. If Alva attempted the projected invasion, 
Hawkins might take the ships as if to escort him, 
and then do some notable exploit in mid-Channel. 

You will observe the downright directness of 
Cecil, Hawkins, and the other parties in the matter. 
There is no wrapping up their intentions in fine 
phrases, no parade of justification. They went 
straight to their point. It was very characteristic 
of Englishmen in those stern, dangerous times. 
They looked facts in the face, and did what fact 
required. All really happened exactly as I have 
described it : the story is told in letters and docu- 
ments of the authenticity of which there is not the 
smallest doubt. 

We will follow Fitzwilliam. He arrived at the 
Spanish Court at the moment when Ridolfi had 
brought from Rome the Pope's blessing on the con- 
spiracy. The final touches were being added by 
the Spanish Council of State. All was hope ; all 



70 EngUsh Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

was tbe credulity of enthusiasm! Mary Stuart's 
letter satisfied Philip. The prisoners were dis- 
missed, each Avith ten dollars in his pocket. An 
agreement was formally drawn and signed in the 
Escm-ial, in which Philip gave Hawkins a pardon 
for his misdemeanours in the West Indies, a patent 
for a Spanish peerage, and a letter of credit for 
40,000/. to put the privateers in a condition to do 
service, and the money was actually paid by Philip's 
London agent. Admitted as he now was to full 
confidence, Fitzmlliam learnt all particulars of the 
great plot. The story reads like a chapter from 
Monte Gristo, and yet it is literally true. 

It ends with a letter which I will read to you, 
from Hawkins to Cecil : — 

* My very good Lord, — It may please your Hon- 
our to be advertised that Fitzwilliam is returned 
from Spain, where his message was acceptably re- 
ceived, both by the King himself, the Duke of 
Feria, and others of the Privy Council. His 
despatch and answer were with great expedition 
and great countenance and favour of the King. 
The Articles are sent to the Ambassador with 
orders also for the money to be paid to me by him, 
for the enterprise to proceed with all diligence. 
The pretence is that my powers should join with 
the Duke of Alva's powers, which ho doth secretly 
provide in Flanders, as well as with powers which 
will come with the Duke of Medina Celi out of 
Spain, and to invade this realm and set up the 



Sir John Hawldns and Pldlip the Second 71 

Queen of Scots. They have x)i'actised witli ns for 
the burning of Her Majesty's ships. Therefore 
there should be some good care had of them, but 
not as it may appear that anjthing is discovered. 
The King has sent a ruby of good price to the 
Queen of Scots, with letters also which in my judg- 
ment were good to be delivered. The letters be of 
no importance, but his message by word is to com- 
fort her, and say that he hath now none other care 
but to place her in her own. It were good also 
that Fitzwilliam may have access to the Queen of 
Scots to render thanks for the delivery of the 
prisoners who are now at liberty. It will be a very 
good colour for your Lordship to confer with him 
more largely. 

' I have sent your Lordship the copy of my par- 
don from the King of Spain, in the order and man- 
ner I have it, with my great titles and honours from 
the King, from Avhich God deliver me. Their prac- 
tices be very mischievous, and they be never idle ; 
but God, I hope, will confound them and turn their 
devices on their own necks. 

' Your Lordship's most faithfully to my power, 

* John Hawkins.' 

A few more words will conclude this curious epi- 
sode. With the clue obtained by Fitzwilliam, and 
confessions twisted out of Story and other unwilling 
witnesses, the Ridolfi conspiracy was unravelled be- 
fore it broke into act. Norfolk lost his head. The 
inferior miscreants were hanged. The Queen of 



72 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Scots had a narrow escape, and tlie Parliament 
accentuated tlie Protestant character of the Church 
of England by embodying the Thirty -nine Articles 
in a statute. Alva, who distrusted Ridolfi from the 
first and disliked encouraging rebellion, refused to 
interest himself further in Anglo-Catholic plots. 
Elizabeth and Cecil could now breathe more freely, 
and read Philip a lesson on the danger of plotting 
against the lives of sovereigns. 

So long as England and Spain were nominally at 
peace, the presence of De la Mark and his privateers 
in the Downs was at least indecent. A committee 
of merchants at Bruges represented that their losses 
by it amounted (as I said) to three million ducats. 
Elizabeth, being now in comparative safety, affected 
to listen to remonstrances, and orders were sent 
down to De la Mark that he must prepare to leave. 
It is likely that both the Queen and he understood 
each other, and that De la Mark quite well knew 
where he was to go, and what he was to do. 

Alva now held every fortress in the Low Countries, 
whether inland or on the coast. The people were 
crushed. The duke's great statue stood in the 
square at Antwerp as a symbol of the annihilation 
of the ancient liberties of the Provinces. By sea 
alone the Prince of Orange still continued the un- 
equal struggle ; but if he was to maintain himself as 
a sea power anywhere, he required a harbour of his 
own in his own country. Dover and the Thames 
had served for a time as a base of operations, but it 
could not last, and without a footing in Holland 



Sir John Haiohins and Philip the Second 73 

itself eventual success was impossible. All the Prot- 
estant world was interested in his- fate, and De la 
Mark, with his miscellaneous gathering of Dutch, 
English, and Huguenot rovers, were ready for any 
desperate exploit. 

The Order was to leave Dover immediately, but it 
was not construed strictly. He lingered in the 
Downs for six weeks. At length, one morning at 
the end of March 1572, a Spanish convoy known to 
be richly loaded appeared in the Straits. De la 
Mark lifted anchor, darted out on it, seized two of 
the largest hulks, rifled them, flung their crews 
overboard, and chased the rest up Channel. A day 
or two after he suddenly showed himself off Brille, 
at the mouth of the Meuse. A boat was sent on 
shore with a note to the governor, demanding the 
instant surrender of the town to the admiral of the 
Prince of Orange. The inhabitants rose in enthu- 
siasm ; the garrison was small, and the governor was 
obliged to comply. De la Mark took possession. 
A few priests and monks attempted resistance, but 
were put down without difliculty, and the leaders 
killed. The churches were cleared of their idols, 
and the mass replaced by the Calvinistic service. 
Cannon and stores, furnished from London, were 
landed, and Brille Avas made impregnable before 
Alva had realised what had haj)pened to him. He 
is said to have torn his beard for anger. Flushing 
followed suit. In a week or two all the strongest 
places on the coast had revolted, and the pirate fleet 
had laid the foundation of the great Dutch Kepub- 



74 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

lie, which at England's side was to strike out of 
Philip's hand the sceptre of the seas, and to save 
the Protestant religion. 

AVe may think as we please of these Beggars of 
the Ocean, these Norse corsairs come to life again 
with the flavour of Genevan theology in them ; but 
for daring, for ingenuity, for obstinate determination 
to be spiritually free or to die for it, the like of the 
Protestant privateers of the sixteenth century has 
been rarely met with in this Avorld. 

England rang with joy when the news came that 
Brille was taken. Church bells pealed, and bonfires 
blazed. Money poured across in streams. Exiled 
families went back to their homes — which were to 
be their homes once more — and the Zealanders and 
Hollanders, entrenched among their ditches, pre- 
pared for an amphibious conflict with the greatest 
power then upon the earth. 



LECTUEE IV 

drake's voyage round the world 

I SUPPOSE some persons present have heard the 
name of Lope cle Vega, the Spanish poet of Philip 
II. 's time. Very few of you probably know more of 
him than his name, and yet he ought to have some 
interest for us, as he was one of the many enthu- 
siastic young Spaniards who sailed in the Great 
Armada. He had been disappointed in some love 
affair. He was an earnest Catholic. He wanted 
distraction, and it is needless to say that he found 
distraction enough in the English Channel to put 
his love troubles out of his mind. His adventures 
brought before him with some vividness the charac- 
ter of the nation Avith which his own country was 
then in the death-grapple, especially the character 
of the great English seaman to whom the Spaniards 
universally attributed their defeat. Lope studied 
the exploits of Francis Drake from his first appear- 
ance to his end, and he celebrated those exjDloits, as 
England herseK has never yet thought it worth her 
while to do, by making him the hero of an epic 
poem. There are heroes and heroes. Lojie de 
Vega's epic is called ' The Dragontea.' Drake liim- 
self is the dragon, the ancient serpent of the Apoc- 



76 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Ceritury 

alypse. We English have been contented to allow 
Drake a certain qualified praise. We admit that he 
was a bold, dexterous sailor, that he did his country 
good service at the Invasion. We allow that he 
was a famous navigator, and sailed round the world, 
which no one else had done before him. But — there 
is always a but — of course he was a robber and a 
corsair, and the only excuse for him is that he was 
no worse than most of his contemporaries. To 
Lope de Vega he was a great deal worse. He was 
Satan himself, the incarnation of the Genius of 
Evil, the arch-enemy of the Church of God. 

It is worth while to look more particularly at the 
figure of a man who appeared to the Spaniards in 
such terrible proportions. I, for my part, believe a 
time will come when we shall see better than we see 
now what the Reformation was, and what we owe to 
it, and these sea-captains of Elizabeth will then 
form the subject of a great English national epic as 
grand as the ' Odyssey.' 

lu my own poor way meanwhile I shall try in 
these lectures to draw you a sketch of Drake and 
his doings as they appear to mj^self. To-day I can 
but give you a part of the rich and varied story, 
but if all goes well I hope I may be able to continue 
it at a future time. 

I have not yet done with Sir John Hawkins. We 
shall hear of him again. He became the manager 
of Elizabeth's dockyards. He it was who turned 
out the ships that fought Philip's fleet in the Chan- 
nel in such condition that not a hull leaked, not a 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 77 

spar was sprung, not a rope parted at an unseason- 
able moment, and this at a minimum of cost. He 
served himself in the squadron which he had 
equipped. He was one of the small group of ad- 
mirals who met that Sunday afternoon in the cabin 
of the ark Baleigli and sent the fireships down to 
stir Medina Sidonia out of his anchorage at Calais. 
He was a child of the sea, and at sea he died, 
sinking at last into his mother's arms. But of this 
hereafter. I must speak now of his still more illus- 
trious kinsman, Francis Drake. 

I told you the other day generally who Drake 
was and where he came from ; how he went to sea 
as a boy, found favour with his master, became 
early an owner of his own ship, sticking steadily to 
trade. You hear nothing of him in connection with 
the Channel pirates. It was not till he was five- 
and-twenty that he was tempted by Hawkins into 
the negro-catching business, and of this one experi- 
ment was enough. He never tried it again. 

The portraits of him vary very much, as indeed it 
is natural that they should, for most of those which 
pass for Drake were not meant for Drake at all. It 
is the fashion in this country, and a very bad fash- 
ion, when we find a remarkable portrait with no 
name authoritatively attached to it, to christen it at 
random after some eminent man, and there it re- 
mains to perplex or mislead. 

The best likeness of Drake that I know is an 
engraving in Sir William Stirling-Maxwell's collec- 
tion of sixteenth-century notabilities, representing 



78 EmjUslt Seamen in fJie Sixtecnih Century 

him, as a scroll says at the foot of the plate, at the 
age of forty -three. The face is roiiucl, the forehead 
broad and full, with the short browu hair curling 
crisply on either side. The eyebrows are highly 
arched, the eyes firm, clear, and open. I cannot 
undertake for the colour, but I should judge they 
would be dark grey, like an eagle's. The nose is 
short and thick, the mouth and chin hid by a heavy 
moustache on the upper lip, and a close-clipped 
beard well sj^read over chin and cheek. The ex- 
pression is good-humoured, but absolutely inflex- 
ible, not a weak line to be seen. He Avas of middle 
height, powerfully built, perhaps too powerfully for 
grace, unless the quilted doublet in which the artist 
has dressed him exaggerates his breadth. 

I have seen another portrait of him, with pre- 
tensions to authenticity, in which he ajjpears with a 
slighter figure, eyes dark, full, thoughtful, and 
stern, a sailor's cord about his neck with a whistle 
attached to it, and a ring into which a thumb is 
carelessly thrust, the weight of the arms resting on 
it, as if in a characteristic attitude. Evidently 
this is a carefully drawn likeness of some remark- 
able seaman of the time. I should like to believe it 
to be Drake, but I can feel no certainty about it. 

We left him returned home in the Judith from 
San Juan de Ulloa, a ruined man. He had never 
injured the Spaniards. He had gone out Avith his 
cousin merely to trade, and he had met with a 
hearty reception from the settlers wherever he had 
been. A Spanish admiral had treacherously set 



Drake's Voyage Bound the World 79 

upon liiin and liis kinsmen, destroyed half tlieir 
vessels, and robbed tlieni of all that they had. 
They had left a hundred of their comrades behind 
them, for whose fate they might fear the worst. 
Drake thenceforth considered Spanish property as 
fair game till he had made up his own losses. He 
waited quietly for four years till he had re-estab- 
lished himself, and then prepared to try fortune 
again in a more daring form. 

The ill-luck at San Juan de Ulloa had risen 
from loose tongues. There had been too much 
talk about it. Too many parties had been con- 
cerned. The Spanish Government had notice and 
were prepared. Drake determined to act for himself, 
have no partners, and keep his own secret. He 
found friends to trust him with money without 
asking for explanations. The Plymouth sailors 
were eager to take their chance with him. His 
force was absurdly small : a sloop or brigantine 
of a hundred tons, which he called the Dragon 
(perhaps, like Lope de Vega, playing on his own 
name), and two small pinnaces. With these he 
left Plymouth in the fall of the summer of 1572. 
He had ascertained that Philip's gold and silver 
from the Peruvian mines was landed at Panama, 
carried across the isthmus on mules' backs on the 
line of M. de Lesseps' canal, and re-shipped at 
Nombre de Dios, at the mouth of the Chagre River. 

He told no one where he was going. He was no 
more communicative than necessary after his re- 
turn, and the results, rather than the particulars, of 



so English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

his adventure are all that can be certainly known. 
Discretion told him to keep his counsel, and he 
kept it. 

The Drake family published an account of this 
voyage in the middle of the nest century, but obvi- 
ously mythical, in parts demonstrably false, and 
nowhere to bo depended on. It can be made out, 
however, that he did go to Nombre de Dios, that he 
found his way into the town, and saw stores of 
bullion there which he would have liked to carry off 
but could not. A romantic story of a fight in the 
town I disbelieve, first because his numbers were so 
small that to try force would have been absurd, and 
next because if there had been really anything like 
a battle an alarm would have been raised in the 
neighbourhood, and it is evident that no alarm 
was given. In the woods were parties of runaway 
slaves, who were called Cimarons. It was to these 
that Drake addressed himself, and they volunteered 
to guide him where he could surprise the treasure 
convoy on the way from Panama. His move- 
ments were silent and rapid. One interesting inci- 
dent is mentioned which is authentic. The Cima- 
rons took him through the forest to the watershed 
from which the streams flow to both oceans. Noth- 
ing could be seen through the jungle of imder- 
growth ; but Drake climbed a tall tree, saw from the 
top of it the Pacific glittering below him, and made 
a vow that one day he would himself sail a ship in 
those waters. 

For the present he had immediate work on 



Dralces Voya<je Round the World 81 

baud. His guides kept their word. They led him 
to the track from Panama, and he had not long to 
wait before the tinkling was heard of the mule bells 
as they were coming up the pass. There was no 
suspicion of danger, not the faintest. The mule 
train had but its ordinary guard, who fled at the 
first surprise. The immense booty fell all into 
Drake's hands — gold, jewels, silver bars — and got 
with much ease, as Prince Hal said at Gadshill. 
The silver they buried, as too heavy for transport. 
The gold, pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds 
they carried down straight to their ship. The 
voyage home went prosjierously. The spoils were 
shared among the adventurers, and they had no 
reason to complain. They were wise enough to 
hold their tongues, and Drake was in a condition 
to look about him and prepare for bigger enter- 
prises. 

Eumours got abroad, spite of reticence. Imagi- 
nation w^as high in flight just then ; rash amateurs 
thought they could make their fortunes in the same 
way, and tried it, to their sorrow. A sort of infla- 
tion can be traced in English sailors' minds as 
their work expanded. Even Hawkins — the clear, 
practical Hawkins — was infected. This was not in 
Drake's line. He kept to prose and fact. He 
studied the globe. He examined all the charts that 
he could get. He became known to the Privy 
Council and the Queen, and prepared for an enter- 
prise which would make his name and frighten 
Philip in earnest. 



82 .English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

The sliips which the Spaniards used on the 
Pacific were usually built on the spot. But Ma- 
gellan was known to have gone by the Horn, and 
where a Portuguese could go an Englishman could 
go. Drake proposed to try. There was a party in 
Elizabeth's Council against these adventures, and 
in favour of peace with Spain ; but Elizabeth herself 
was always for enterprises of pith and moment. She 
^ was willing to help, and others of her Coimcil were 
willing too, provided their names were not to ap- 
pear. The responsibility was to be Drake's own. 
Again the vessels in which he was preparing to 
tempt fortune seem preposterously small. The 
Pelican, or Golden Hinde, which belonged to Drake 
himself, was called but 120 tons, at best no larger 
than a modern racing yaAvl, though perhaps no 
racing yawl ever left White's yard better found for 
the work which she had to do. The next, the 
Elizabeth, of London, was said to be eighty tons ; 
a small pinnace of twelve tons, in which we should 
hardly risk a summer cruise round the Land's End, 
with two slooj^s or frigates of fifty and thirty tons, 
made the rest. The Elizabeth was commanded by 
Captain Winter, a Queen's officer, and perhaps a 
son of the old admiral. 

We may credit Drake with knoAving what he was 
about. He and his comrades were carrying their 
lives in their hands. If they were taken they would 
be inevitably hanged. Their safety depended on 
speed of sailing, and specially on the power of 
"working fast to windward, which the heavy square- 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 83 

rigged ships could not do. The crews all told were 
160 men and lioys. Drake had his brother John 
with him. Among his officers were the chaplain, 
Mr. Fletcher, another minister of some kind who 
spoke Spanish, and in one of the sloops a mysterious 
Mr. Doughty. Who Mr. Doughty was, and why he 
was sent out, is uncertain. When an expedition of 
consequence was on hand, the Spanish party in the 
Cabinet usually attached to it some second in com- 
mand whose business was to defeat the object. 
When Drake went to Cadiz in after years to singe 
King Philip's beard, he had a colleague sent with 
him whom he had to lock into his cabin before he 
could get to his work. So far as I can make out, 
Mr. Doughty had a similar commission. On this 
occasion secrecy was impossible. It was generally 
known that Drake was going to the Pacific through 
Magellan Straits, to act afterwards on his OAvn judg- 
ment. The Spanish ambassador, now Don Bernar- 
dino de Mendoza, in informing Philip of what was 
intended, advised him to send out orders for the in- 
stant sinking of every English ship, and the execu- 
tion of every English sailor, that appeared on either 
side the isthmus in West Indian waters. The or- 
ders were despatched, but so impossible it seemed 
that an English pirate could reach the Pacific, that 
the attention was confined to the Caribbean Sea, and 
not a hint of alarm was sent across to the other 
side. 

On November 15, 1577, the Pelican and her con- 
sort sailed out of Plymouth Sound. The elements 



84 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Centurij * 

frowned on their start. On the second day they 
were caught in a winter gale. The Pelican sprung 
her mainmast, and they put back to refit and repair. 
But Drake defied auguries. Before the middle of 
December all was again in order. The weather 
mended, and mth a fair wind and smooth water 
they made a fast run across the Bay of Biscay and 
down the coast to the Caj^e de Yerde Islands. 
There, taking up the north-east trades, they struck 
across the Atlantic, crossed the line, and made the 
South American continent in latitude 33° South. 
They passed the mouth of the Plate River, finding 
to their astonishment fresh water at the ship's side 
in fifty-four fathoms. All seemed so far going Avell, 
when one morning Mr. Doughty 's sloop was missing, 
and he along with her. Drake, it seemed, had al- 
ready reason to distrust Doughty, and guessed the 
direction in which he had gone. The Marigold was 
sent in pursuit, and he was overtaken and brought 
back. To prevent a repetition of such a perform- 
ance, Drake took the sloop's stores out of her, burnt 
her, distributed the crew through the other vessels, 
and took Mr. Doughty under his own charge. On 
June 20 they reached Port St. Julian, on the coast 
of Patagonia. They had been long on the way, and 
the southern winter had come round, and they had 
to delay fm-ther to make more particular inquiry into 
Doughty's desertion. An ominous and strange spec- 
tacle met their eyes as they entered the harbour. In 
that utterly desolate spot a skeleton was hanging on 
a gallows, the bones picked clean by the vultures. 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 85 

It was one of Magellan's crew wlio had been exe- 
cuted there for mutiny fifty years before. The same 
fate was to befall the unhappy Englishman who had 
been guilty of the same fault. Without the strictest 
discipline it was impossible for the enterprise to suc- 
ceed, and Doughty had been guilty of worse than 
disobedience. We are told briefly that his conduct 
was found tending to contention, and threatenmg 
the success of the voyage. Part he was said to have 
confessed ; part was proved against him— one knows 
not what. A court was formed out of the crew. 
He was tried, as near as circmnstances allowed, ac- 
cording to English usage. He was found guilty, 
and was sentenced to die. He made no comi^laint, 
or none of which a record is preserved. He asked 
for the Sacrament, which was of course allowed, and 
Drake himself communicated with him. They then 
kissed each other, and the unlucky wretch took leave 
of his comrades, laid his head on the block, and so 
ended. His offence can be only guessed ; but the 
suspicious curiosity about his fate which was sho^vn 
afterwards by Mendoza makes it likely that he 
was in Spanish pay. The ambassador cross-ques- 
tioned Captain Winter very particularly about him, 
and we learn one remarkable fact from Mendoza's 
letters not mentioned by any English writer, that 
Drake was himself the executioner, choosing to bear 
the entire responsibility. 

'This done,' writes an eyewitness, 'the general 
made divers speeches to the whole company, per- 
suading us to unity, obedience, and regard of oiu' 



86 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

voyage, and for the better confirmation thereof 
willed every man the Sunday following to prepare 
liimseK to receive the Commimion as Christian 
brothers and friends ought to do, which was done 
in very reverend sort ; and so with good content- 
ment every man went about his business.' 

You must take this last incident into your con- 
ception of Drake's character, think of it how you 
please. 

It was now midwinter, the stormiest season of the 
year, and they remained for six weeks in Port St. 
Julian. They burnt the twelve-ton pinnace, as too 
small for the Avork they had now before them, and 
there remained only the Pelican, the Elizabeth, and 
the Marigold. In cold wild weather they weighed 
at last, and on August 20 made the opening of Ma- 
gellan's Straits. The passage is seventy miles long, 
tortuous and dangerous. They had no charts. The 
ships' boats led, taking soundings as they advanced. 
Icy mountains overhung them on either side ; heavy 
snow fell below. They brought up occasionally at 
an island to rest the men, and let them kill a few 
seals and penguins to give them fresh food. Every- 
thing they saw was new, wild, and wonderful. 

Having to feel their way, they were three weeks 
in getting through. They had counted on reaching 
the Pacific that the worst of their work was over, 
and that they could run north at once into warmer 
and calmer latitudes. The peaceful ocean, when 
they entered it, proved the stormiest they had ever 
sailed on. A fierce westerly gale drove them 600 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 87 

miles to tlie south-east outside the Horn. It had 
been supposed, hitherto, that Tierra del Fuego was 
solid land to the South Pole, and that the Straits 
were the only communication between the Atlantic 
and the Pacific. They now learnt the true shape 
iiud character of the Western Continent. In the 
latitude of Cape Horn a westerly gale blows for 
ever round the globe'; the waves the highest any- 
where known. The Marigold went down in the 
tremendous encounter. Captain Winter, in the 
Elizabeth, made his way back into Magellan's Straits. 
There he lay for three weeks, lighting fires nightly 
to show Drake where he was, but no Drake appeared. 
They had agreed, if separated, to meet on the coast 
in the latitude of Valparaiso; but Winter was 
chicken-hearted, or else traitorous lilie Doughty, and 
sore, we are told, ' against the mariners' will,' when 
the three weeks were out, he sailed away for Eng- 
hmd, where he reported that all the ships were lost 
but the Pelican, and that the Pelican was probably 
lost too. 

Drake had believed better of Winter, and had 
not expected to be so deserted. He had himself 
taken refuge among the islands which form the 
Cape, waiting for the spring and milder weather. 
He used the time in making surveys, and observing 
the habits of the native Patagonians, whom he 
found a tough race, going naked amidst ice and 
snow. The days lengthened, and the sea smoothed 
at last. He then sailed for Valparaiso, hoping to 
meet AVinter there, as he had arranged. At Val- 



88 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

paraiso there was no Winter, but there was in the 
port instead a great galleon just come in from Peru. 
The galleon's crew took him for a Spaniard, hoisted 
their colours, and beat their drums. The Pelican 
shot alongside. The English sailors in high spirits 
leapt on board. A Plymouth lad who could speak 
Spanish knocked down the first man he met with 
an ' Abajo, perro ! ' ' Down, you dog, down ! ' No 
life was taken ; Drake never hiirt man if he could 
help it. The crew crossed themselves, jumped 
overboard, and swam ashore. The prize was ex- 
amined. Four hundred pounds' weight of gold was 
found in her, besides other plunder. 

The galleon being disposed of, Drake and his 
men pulled ashore to look at the town. The people 
had all fled. In the church they found a chalice, 
two cruets, and an altar-cloth, which were made 
over to the chaplain to improve his Communion 
furniture. A few pipes of wine and a Greek pilot 
who knew the way to Lima completed the booty. 

' Shocking piracy,' you will perhaps say. But 
what Drake was doing would have been all right 
and good service had war been declared, and the 
essence of things does not alter with the form. In 
essence there luas war, deadly war, between Philip 
and Elizabeth. Even later, wdien the Armada sailed, 
there had been no formal declaration. The reality 
is the important part of the matter. It was but 
stroke for stroke, and the English arm proved the 
stronger. 

Still hoping to find Winter in advance of him. 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 89 

Drake went on next to Tarapaca, where silver from 
the Andes mines was shipped for Panama. At 
Tarapaca there was the same unconsciousness of 
danger. The silver bars lay piled on the quay, the 
muleteers who had brought them were sleeping 
peacefully in the sunshine at their side. The mule- 
teers were left to their slumbers. The bars were 
lifted into the English boats. A train of mules or 
llamas came in at the moment with a second load 
as rich as the first. This, too, went into the Pe//- 
can's hold. The bullion taken at Tarapaca was 
worth near half a million ducats. 

Still there were no news of Winter. Drake began 
to realize that he was now entirely alone, and had 
only himself and his own crew to depend on. 
There was nothing to do but to go through with it, 
danger adding to the interest. Arica was the next 
point visited. Half a hundi'ed blocks of silver were 
picked up at Arica. After Arica came Lima, the 
chief depot of all, where the grandest haul was 
looked for. At Lima, alas ! they were just too late. 
Twelve great hulks lay anchored there. The sails 
were unbent, the men were ashore. They contained 
nothing but some chests of reals and a few bales 
of silk and linen. But a thirteenth, called by the 
gods Our Ladij of the Conception, called by men 
Cacafuego, a name incapable of translation, had 
sailed a few days before for the isthmus, with the 
whole produce of the Lima mines for the season. 
Her ballast was silver, her cargo gold and emeralds 
and rubies. 



90 Biiglisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Drake deliberately cut tlie cables of the sliips in 
the roads, that they might drive ashore and be 
unable to follow him. The Pelican spread her 
wings, every feather of them, and sped away in 
pursuit. He would know the Cacafuego, so he 
learnt at Lima, by the peculiar cut of her sails. 
The first man who caught sight of her was promised 
a gold chain for his reward. A sail was seen on 
the second day. It was not the chase, but it was 
worth stoi^ping for. Eighty pounds' weight of gold 
w^as found, and a great gold crucifix, set with 
emeralds said to be as large as pigeon's eggs. They 
took the kernel. They left the shell. Still on and 
on. We learn from the Spanish accounts that the 
Viceroy of Lima, as soon as he recovered from his 
astonishment, despatched ships in pursuit. They 
came up with the last plundered vessel, heard 
terrible tales of the rovers' strength, and went back 
for a larger force. The Pelican meanwhile went 
along upon her course for 800 miles. At length, 
when in the latitude of Quito and close under the 
shore, the Cacafuegd's peculiar sails were sighted, 
and the gold chain was claimed. There she was, 
freighted with the fruit of Aladdin's garden, going 
lazily along a few miles ahead. Care w^as needed 
in approaching her. If she guessed the Pelican's 
character, she would run in upon the land and they 
would lose her. It was afternoon. The sun was 
still above the horizon, and Drake meant to wait 
till night, when the breeze would be oflf the shore, 
as in the tropics it always is. 



Brake's Voyage Bound the World 91 

The Pelican sailed two feet to the Cacafuego's 
one. Drake filled his empty wine-skins with water 
and trailed them astern to stop his way. The 
chase supposed that she was followed by some 
heavy-loaded trader, and, wishing for company on 
a lonely voyage, she slackened sail and waited for 
him to come up. At length the smi went down 
into the ocean, the rosy light faded from off the 
snows of the Andes ; and when both ships had be- 
come invisible from the shore, the skins were hauled 
in, the night wind rose, and the water began to 
ripple under the Pelicans bows. The Cacafuego 
was swiftly overtaken, and when within a cable's 
length a voice hailed her to put her head into the 
wind. The Spanish commander, not understanding 
so strange an order, held on his course. A broad- 
side brought down his mainyard, and a flight of 
arrovN's rattled on his deck. He was himself 
wounded. In a few minutes he was a prisoner, and 
Our Lady of the Conception and her precious freight 
were in the corsair's power. The wreck was cut 
away ; the ship was cleared ; a prize crew was put 
on board. Both vessels turned their heads to the 
sea. At daybreak no land was to be seen, and the 
examination of the prize began. The full value 
was never acknowledged. The invoice, if there was 
one, was destroyed. The accurate figures were 
known only to Drake and Queen Elizabeth. A 
published schedule acknowledged to twenty tons of 
silver bullion, thirteen chests of silver coins, and a 
hundredweight of gold, but there were gold nuggets 



92 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

besides in indefinite quantity, and ' a great store ' 
of pearls, emeralds, and diamonds. The Spanish 
Government proved a loss of a million and a half 
of ducats, excluding what belonged to private 
persons. The total capture was immeasurably 
greater. 

Drake, we are told, was greatly satisfied. He 
thought it pnident to stay in the neighbourhood no 
longer than necessary. He went north with all 
sail set, taking his prize along with him. The 
master, San Juan de Anton, was removed on board 
the Pelican to have his wound attended to. He 
remained as Drake's guest for a week, and sent in 
a report of what he observed to the Spanish Govern- 
ment. One at least of Drake's party spoke excel- 
lent Spanish. This person took San Juan over the 
ship. She showed signs, San Juan said, of rough 
service, but was still in fine condition, with ample 
arms, spare rope, mattocks, carpenters' tools of all 
descriptions. There were eightj'-five men on board 
all told, fifty of them men-of-war, the rest young 
fellows, ship-boys and the like. Drake himself was 
treated with gi'eat reverence ; a sentinel stood al- 
ways at his cabin door. He dined alone with music. 

No mystery was made of the Pelican's exploits. 
The chaplain showed San Juan the crucifix set 
with emeralds, and asked him if he could seriously 
believe that to be God. San Juan asked Drake 
how he meant to go home. Drake showed him a 
globe with three courses traced on it. There was 
the way that he had come, there was the way by 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 93 

China and the Cape of Good Hope, and there was 
a third way which he did not expkiin. San Juan 
asked if Spain and England were at war. Drake 
said he had a commission from the Queen. His 
captures were for her, not for himself. He added 
afterwards that the Viceroy of Mexico had robbed 
him and his kinsman, and he was making good his 
losses. 

Then, touching the point of the sore, he said, 
' I know the Viceroy will send for thee to inform 
himself of my proceedings. Tell him he shall do 
well to put no more Englishmen to death, and 
to spare those he has in his hands, for if he do 
execute them I will hang 2,000 Spaniards and send 
him their heads.' 

After a week's detention San Juan and his men 
were restored to the empty Cacafmgo, and allowed 
to go. On their way back they fell in with the two 
cruisers sent in pursuit from Lima, reinforced by a 
third from Panama. They were now fully armed ; 
tliey went in chase, and according to their own 
account came up with the Pelican. But, like Lope 
de Vega, they seemed to have been terrified at 
Drake as a sort of devil. They confessed that they 
dared not attack him, and again went back for 
more assistance. The Viceroy abused them as 
cowards, arrested the officers, despatched others 
again with peremptory orders to seize Drake, even 
if he was the devil, but by tliat time their ques- 
tionable visitor had flown. They found nothing, 
perhaps to their relief. 



04 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

A despatcli went instantly across the Atlantic to 
Philip. One squadron Avas sent off from Cadiz to 
watch the Straits of Magellan, and another to patrol 
the Caribbean Sea. It was thought that Drake's 
third way was no seaway at all, that he meant to 
leave the Pelican at Darien, carry his plunder over 
the mountains, and build a ship at Honduras to 
take him home. His real idea was that he misht 
hit off' the passage to the north of which Frobisher 
and Davis thought they had foimd the eastern en- 
trance. He stood on towards California, picking 
up an occasional straggler in the China trade, with 
silk, porcelain, gold, and emeralds. Fresh water 
was a necessity. He put in at Guatulco for it, and 
his proceedings were humorously prompt. The 
alcaldes at Guatulco were in session trying a batch 
of negroes. An English boat's crew appeared in 
court, tied the alcaldes hand and foot, and carried 
them off to the Pelican, there to remain as hostages 
till the water-casks were filled. 

North again he fell in with a galleon carrying out 
a new Governor to the Philippines. The Governor 
was relieved of his boxes and his jewels, and then, 
says one of the party, ' Our General, thinking him- 
self in respect of his private injuries received from 
the Spaniards, as also their contempt and indignities 
offered to our country and Prince, sufficiently satis- 
fied and revenged, and supposing her Majesty would 
rest contented with this service, began to consider 
the best way home.' The first necessity was a com- 
plete overhaul of the ship. Before the days of cop- 



Drake's Voyage Bound the World 95 

per sheathing weeds grew thick under water. Bar- 
nacles formed in clusters, stopping the speed, and 
sea-worms bored through the planking. Twenty 
thousand miles lay between the Pelican and Plym- 
outh Sound, and Drake was not a man to run idle 
chances. Still holding his north course till he 
had left the furthest Spanish settlement far to the 
south, he put into Canoas Bay in California, laid the 
Pelican ashore, set up forge and workshop, and re- 
paired and rerigged her with a month's labour from 
stem to stem. With every rope new set up and new 
canvas on every yard, he started again on April 16, 
1579, and continued up the coast to Oregon. The 
air grew cold though it was summer. The men felt 
it from having been so long in the tropics, and 
dropped out of health. There was still no sign of 
a passage. If passage there was, Drake perceived 
that it must be of enormous length. Magellan's 
Straits, he guessed, would be watched for him, so 
he decided on the route by the Cape of Good Hope- 
In the Philippine ship he had found a chart of the 
Indian Archipelago. With the help of this and his 
own skill he hoped to find his way. He went down 
again to San Francisco, landed there, found the soil 
teeming with gold, made acquaintance with an Ind- 
ian king who hated the Spaniards and wished to 
become an English subject. But Drake had no 
leisui-e to annex new territories. Avoiding the 
course from Mexico to the Philippines, he made a 
direct course to the Moluccas, and brought up again 
at the Island of Celebes. Here the Pelican was a 



06 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

second time docked and scraped. The crew liad a 
montli's rest among the fireflies and vampires of the 
tropical forest. Leaving Celebes, they entered on 
the most perilous part of the whole voyage. They 
wound their Avay among coral reefs and low islands 
scarcely visible above the water-line. In their 
chart the only outlet marked into the Indian Ocean 
was by the Straits of Malacca. But Drake guessed 
rightly that there must be some nearer opening, and 
felt his way looking for it along the coast of Java. 
Spite of all his care, he was once on the edge of de- 
struction. One evening as night was closing in a 
grating sound was heard under the Pelicans keel. 
In another moment she was hard and fast on a reef. 
The breeze was light and the water smooth, or the 
world would have heard no more of Francis Drake. 
She lay immovable till daybreak. At dawn the 
position was seen not to be entirely desperate. 
Drake himself showed all the qualities of a great 
commander. Cannon were thrown over and cargo 
that was not needed. In the afternoon, the wind 
changing, the lightened vessel lifted off the rocks 
and was saved. The hull was uninjured, thanks to 
the Californian repairs. All on board had behaved 
well with the one exception of Mr. Fletcher, the 
chaplain. Mr. Fletcher, instead of working like a 
man, had whined about Divine retribution for the 
execution of Doughty. 

For the moment Drake passed it over. A few 
days after, they passed out through the Straits of 
Sunda, where they met the great ocean swell, 



Drakes Voyage Round the IVorld 97 

Homer's fxeja kv/xu OaXdaai]^, and they knew then 
that all Avas well. 

There was now time to call Mr, Fletcher to ac- 
count. It was no business of the chaplain to dis- 
courage and dispirit men in a moment of danger, 
and a court was formed to sit upon him. An Eng- 
lish captain on his ow^n deck represents the sover- 
eign, and is head of Church as Avell as State. Mr. 
Fletcher was brought to the forecastle, where Drake, 
sitting on a sea-chest with a pair oi pantovflcs in his 
hand, excommunicated him, pronoimced him cut off 
from the Church of God, given over to the devil for 
the chastising of his flesh, and left him chained by 
the leg to a ring-bolt to rej^ent of his cowardice. 

In the general good-humour punishment could not 
be of long duration. The next day the poor chap- 
lain had his absolution and returned to his berth 
and his duty. The Pelican met with no more ad- 
ventures. Sweeping in fine clear weather round 
the Cape of Good Hope, she touched once for water 
at Sierra Leone, and finally sailed in triumph into 
Plymouth Harbour, where she had been long given 
up for lost, having traced the first furrow round the 
globe. Winter had come home eighteen months be- 
fore, but could report nothing. The news of the doings 
on the American coast had reached England through 
Madrid. The Spanish ambassador had been furious. 
It was known that Spanish squadrons had been sent 
in search. Complications would arise if Drake 
brought his plunder home, and timid politicians 
hoped that he was at the bottom of the sea. But 
7 



98 Engllsli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

here lie was, actually arrived with a moDarch's ran- 
som iu his hold. 

f / English sympathy Avith an extraordinary exploit 
is always irresistible. Shouts of applause rang 
through the country, and Elizabeth, every bit of her 
an Englishwoman, felt with her subjects. She sent 
for Drake to London, made him tell his story over 
and over again, and was never weary of listening to 
him. As to injury to Spain, Philip had lighted a 
! fresh insurrection in Ireland, which had cost her 
dearly in lives and money. For Philip to demand 
compensation of England on the score of justice was 
a thing to make the gods laugh. 

So thought the Queen. So unfortunately did not 
think some members of her Council, Lord Burghley 
among them, Mendoza was determined that Drake 
should be pmiished and the sj^oils disgorged, or 
else that he would force Elizabeth upon the world 
as the confessed protectress of piracy. Burghley 
thought that, as things stood, some satisfaction (or 
the form of it) would have to be made. 

Elizabeth hated paying back as heartily as Fal- 
staff, nor had she the least intention of throwing 
to the wolves a gallant Englishman, with whose 
achievements the world was ringing. She was 
obliged to allow the treasure to be registered by a 
responsible official, and an account rendered to 
Mendoza ; but for all that she meant to keep her 
own share of the spoils. She meant, too, that Drake 
and his brave crew should not go unrewarded. Drake 
himself should have ten thousand pounds at least. 



Drake's Voyage Round the World 9)1 

Her action was eminently characteristic of her. 
On the score of real jnstice there was no doubt at 
all how matters stood between herself and Philip, 
who had tried to dethrone and kill her. 

The Pelican lay still at Plymouth with the bul- 
lion and jewels untouched. She directed that it 
should be landed and scheduled. She trusted the 
business to Edmund Tremayne, of Sydenham, a 
neighbouring magistrate, on whom she could de- 
pend. She told him not to be too inquisitive, and 
she allowed Drake to go back and arrange the cargo 
before the examination was made. Let me now 
read you a letter from Tremayne himself to Sir 
Francis Walsingham : — 

' To give you some understanding how I have pro- 
ceeded with Mr. Drake : I have at no time entered 
into the account to know more of the value of the 
treasure than he made me acquainted with ; and to 
say truth I persuaded him to impart to me no more 
than need, for so I saw him commanded in her 
Majesty's behalf that he should reveal the certainty 
to no man living. I have only taken notice of so 
much as he has revealed, and the same I have seen 
to be weighed, registered, and packed. And to ob- 
serve her Majesty's commands for the ten thousand 
pounds, we agreed he should take it out of the por- 
tion that was landed secretly, and to remove the 
same out of the place before my son Henry and I 
should come to the weighing and registering of 
what was left , and so it was done, and no creature 
living by me made privy to it but himself; and 



x/ 



^00 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

myself no privier to it than as you may perceive 
by this, 

' I see nothing to charge Mr. Drake further than 
he is inclined to charge himself, and withal I must 
say he is inclined to advance the value to be deliv- 
ered to her Majesty, and seeking in general to 
recompense all men that have been in the case 
dealers with him. As I dare take an oath, he will 
rather diminish his own portion than leave any of 
them unsatisfied. And for his mariners and follow- 
ers I have seen here as eye-witness, and have 
heard with my ears, such certain signs of goodwill 
as I cannot yet see that any of them will leave his 
company. The whole course of his voyage hath 
showed him to be of great valour ; but my hap has 
been to see some particulars, and namely in this 
discharge of his company, as doth assm-e me that 
he is a man of great government, and that by the 
rules of God and his book, so as proceeding on such 
foundation his doings cannot but prosper.' 

The result of it all was that deductions were made 
from the capture equivalent to the property which 
Drake and Hawkins held themselves to have been 
treacherously plundered of at San Juan de UUoa, 
Avith perhaps other liberal allowances for the cost 
of recovery. An account on part of what remained 
was then given to Mendoza. It was not returned 
to him or to Philip, but was laid up in the Tower till 
the final settlement of Philip's and the Queen's 
claims on each other — the cost, for one thing, of 
the rebellion in Ireland. Commissioners met and 



Drahe's Voyage Bound the World 101 

argued and sat on ineifectually till the Armada came 
and the discussion ended, and tlie talk of restitution 
was over. Meanwhile, opinion varied about Drake's 
own doings as it has varied since. Elizabeth lis- 
tened spellbound to his adventures, sent for him to 
London again, and walked with him publicly about 
the parks and gardens. She gave him a second 
ten thousand pounds. The Pelican was sent round 
to Deptford ; a royal banquet was held on board, 
Elizabeth attended and Drake was knighted. Men- 
doza clamoured for the treasure in the Tower to be 
given up to him ; Walsingham wished to give it to 
the Prince of Orange ; Leicester and his party in 
the Council, who had helped to fit Drake out, 
thought it ought to be divided among themselves, 
and unless Meudoza lies they offered to share it with 
him if he would agree to a private arrangement. 
Mendoza says he answered that he would give twice 
as much to chastise such a bandit as Drake. Eliza- 
beth thought it should be kept as a captured pawn 
in the game, and so in fact it remained after the de- 
ductions which we have seen had been made. 

Drake was lavish of his presents. He presented 
the Queen with a diamond cross and a coronet set 
with splendid emeralds. He gave Bromley, the 
Lord Chancellor, 800 dollars' worth of silver plate, 
and as much more to other members of the Council. 
The Queen w^ore her coronet on New Year's Day ; 
the Chancellor was content to decorate his side- 
board at the cost of the Catholic King. Burghley 
and Sussex declined the splendid temptation ; they A/ 



102 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

said they could accept no sucli precious gifts from 
a man whose fortune had been made bj phmder. 

Burghley lived to see better into Drake's value. 
Meanwhile, what now are we, looking back over 
our history, to say of these things— the Channel 
privateering ; the seizure of Alva's army money ; 
the sharp practice of Hawkins with the Queen of 
Scots and King Philip ; or this amazing perform- 
ance of Sir Francis Drake in a vessel no larger 
than a second-rate yacht of a modern noble lord? / 

Resolution, daring, professional skill, all his- 
torians allow to these men ; but, like Burghley, 
they regard what they did as piracy, not much 
better, if at all better, than the later exploits of 
Morgan and Kidd. So cried the Catholics who 
wished Elizabeth's ruin ; so cried 1jO])q de Vega 
and King Philip. In milder language the modern 
philosopher repeats the unfavourable verdict, re- 
joices that he lives in an age when such doings are 
impossible, and apologises faintly for the excesses of 
an imperfect age. May I remind the philosopher 
that we live in an age when other things have also 
happily become impossible, and that if he and his 
friends were liable when they went abroad for their 
summer tours to be snapped by the familiars of the 
Inquisition, whipped, burnt alive, or sent to the 
galleys, he would perhaps think more leniently of 
any measures by which that respectable institution 
and its masters might be induced to treat philoso- 
pliers with greater consideration ? 

Again, remember Dr. Johnson's warning, Beware 



Drakes Voyage Bound the World 103 

of cant. In that intensely serious century men were 
more occupied with the realities than the forms of 
things. By encouraging rebellion in England and 
Ireland, by burning so many scores of poor English 
seamen and merchants in fools' coats at Seville, 
the King of Spain had given EHzabeth a hundred 
occasions for declaring war against him. Situated 
as she was, with so many disaffected Catholic sub- 
jects, she could not hegln a war on such a quarrel. 
She had to use such resources as she had, and of 
these resources the best was a splendid race of men 
who were not afraid to do for her at their own risk 
what commissioned officers would and might have 
justly done had formal war been declared, men who 
defeated the national enemy with materials con- 
quered from himself, who were devoted enough to 
dispense with the personal security which the sove- 
reign's commission would have extended to prison- 
ers of war, and face the certainty of being hanged 
if they were taken. Yes ; no doubt by the letter of 
the law of nations Drake and Hawkins were cor- 
sairs of the same stuff as Ulysses, as the rovers of 
Norway. But the common-sense of Europe saw 
through the form to the substance which lay below 
it, and the instinct of their countrymen gave them 
a place among the fighting heroes of England, from 
which I do not think they will be dejoosed by the 
eventual verdict of history. 



LECTUEE V 

PAETIES IN THE STATE 

On December 21, 1585, a remarkable scene took 
place in the Euglisli House of Commons. The 
Prince of Orange, after many attempts had failed, 
had been successfully disposed of in the Low Coun- 
tries. A fresh conspiracy had just been discovered 
for a Catholic insurrection in England, supported 
by a foreign invasion ; the object of which was to 
dethrone Elizabeth and to give her crown to Mary 
Stuart. The Duke of Alva, at the time of the 
Kidolfi plot, had pointed out as a desirable pre- 
liminary, if the invasion was to succeed, the assas- 
sination of the Queen of England. The succession 
being undecided, he had calculated that the confu- 
sion would paralyse resistance, and the notorious 
favour with which Mary Stuart's pretensions were 
regarded by a powerful English party would ensure 
her an easy victory were Elizabeth ouce removed. 
But this was an indispensable condition. It had 
become clear at last that so long as Elizabeth was 
alive Philip would not v/illingly sanction the land- 
ing of a Spanish army on English shores. Thus, 
among the more ardent Catholics, especially the 
refugees at the Seminary at Eheims, a crown in 



Parties in the State 105 

heaven was held out to any spiritual knight-errant 
who would remove the obstacle. The enterprise 
itself was not a difficult one. Elizabeth was aware 
of her danger, but she was personally fearless. 
She refused to distrust the Catholics. Her house- 
hold was full of them. She admitted anyone to 
her presence who desired a private interview. Dr. 
Parry, a member of Parliament, primed by encour- 
agements from the Cardinal of Como and the Vatican, 
had undertaken to risk his life to win the glorious 
prize. He introduced himself into the palace, 
properly provided with arms. He professed to have 
information of importance to give. The Queen 
received him repeatedly. Once he was alone with 
her in the palace garden, and was on the point of 
killing her, when he was awed, as he said, by the 
likeness to her father. Parry was discovered and 
hanged, but Elizabeth refused to take "\\aruiug. 
When there were so many aspirants for the honour 
of removing Jezebel, and Jezebel was so easy of 
approach, it was felt that one would at last suc- 
ceed ; and the loyal part of the nation, led by Lord 
Burghley, formed themselves into an association to 
protect a life so vital to them and apparently so 
indifferent to herself. 

The subscribers boimd themselves to pursue to 
the death all manner of persons who should attempt 
or consent to anything to the harm of her Majesty's 
person ; never to allow or submit to any pretended 
successor by whom or for whom such detestable act 
should be attempted or committed ; but to pursue 



106 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

sucli persons to deatli and act tlie utmost revenge 
upon tliem. 

The bond in its first form was a visible creation 
of despair. It implied a condition of tilings in 
wliicli order would liave ceased to exist. The law- 
yers, who, it is curious to observe, were generally 
in Mary Stuart's interest, vehemently objected; yet 
so passionate was public feeling that it was signed 
throughout the kingdom, and Parliament was called 
to pass an Act which would secure the same object. 
Mary Stuart, at any rate, was not to benefit by the 
crimes either of herself or her admirers. It was 
provided that if the realm was invaded, or a rebel- 
lion instigated by or for any one pretending a title 
to the crown after the Queen's death, such pretender 
should be disqualified for ever. In the event of the 
Queen's assassination the government was to devolve 
on a Committee of Peers and Privy Councillors, 
who were to examine the particulars of the murder 
and execute the perpetrators and their accomplices ; 
while, with a significant allusion, all Jesuits and 
seminary priests were required to leave the country 
instantly, under pain of death. 

The House of Commons was heaving with emotion 
when the Act was sent up to the Peers. To give 
expression to their burning feelings Sir Christopher 
Hatton proposed that before they separated they 
should join him in a prayer for the Queen's preser- 
vation. The 400 members all rose, and knelt on 
the floor of the House, repeating Ilatton's words 
after him, sentence by sentence. 



Parties in the State 107 

Jesuits and seminary priests ! Attempts have 
been made to justify the conspiracies against 
Elizabeth from what is called the persecution of the 
innocent enthusiasts who came from Eheims to 
preach the Catholic faith to the English people. 
Popular writers and speakers dwell on the execu- 
tions of Campian and his friends as worse than the 
Smithfield burnings, and amidst general admiration 
and approval these martjTed saints have been lately 
canonised. Their mission, it is said, was purely 
religious. Was it so? The chief article in the 
religion which they came to teach was the duty of 
obedience to the Pope, who had excommunicated 
the Queen, had absolved her subjects from their 
allegiance, and, by a relaxation of the Bull, had 
permitted them to pretend to loyalty ad illud tempus, 
till a Catholic army of deliverance should arrive. 
A Pope had sent a legate to Ireland, and was at 
that moment stirring up a bloody insurrection there. 

But what these seminary priests were, and what 
their object was, will best appear from an account 
of the condition of England, di"aAvn up for the use 
of the Pope and Philip, by Father Parsons, who 
was himself at the head of the mission. The date 
of it is 1585, almost simultaneous with the scene in 
Parliament which I have just been describing. The 
English refugees, from Cardinal Pole downwards, 
were the most active and passionate preachers of 
a Catholic crusade against England. They failed, 
but they have revenged themselves in history. Pole, 
Sanders, Allen, and Parsons have coloured all that 



108 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

we siijDpose oiu'selves to know of Henry VIII. and 
Elizabeth. "What I am about to read to you does 
not diifer essentially from what we have already 
heard from these persons ; but it is new, and, being- 
intended for practical guidance, is complete in its 
way. It comes from the Spanish archives, and is 
not therefore open to suspicion. Parsons, as you 
know, was a Fellow of Balliol before his conversion ; 
Allen was a Fellow of Oriel, and Sanders of New 
College. An Oxford Church of England education 
is an excellent thing, and beautiful characters have 
been formed in the Catholic universities abroad; 
but as the elements of dynamite are innocent in 
themselves, yet when fused together produce effects 
no one would have dreamt of, so Oxford and Rome, 
when they have run together, have always generated 
a somewhat furious compound. 

Parsons describes his statement as a ' brief note 
on the present condition of England,' from which 
may be inferred the ease and opportuneness of the 
holy enterprise. ' England,' he says, ' contains fifty- 
two counties, of which forty are well inclined to the 
Catholic faith. Heretics in these are few, and are 
hated by all ranks. The remaining twelve are in- 
fected more or less, but even in these the Catholics 
are in the majority. Divide England into three 
parts ; two-thirds at least are Catholic at heart, 
though many conceal their convictions in fear of the 
Queen. English Catholics are of two sorts — one 
which makes an open profession regardless of con- 
sequences, the other believing at the bottom, but 



Parties in the State 109 

uuwilliiig to risk life or fortune, and so submittiDg 
outwardly to the heretic laws, but as eager as the 
Catholic confessors for redemption from slavery. 

' The Queen and her party,' he goes on, ' more 
fear these secret Catholics than those who wear 
their colours openly. The latter they can fine, dis- 
arm, and make innocuous. The others, being out- 
wardly compliant, cannot be touched, nor can any 
precaution be taken against their rising when the 
day of divine vengeance shall arrive. 

'The counties specially Catholic are the most 
warlike, and contain harbours and other conveniences 
for the landing of an invading army. The north 
towards the Scotch border has been trained in con- 
stant fighting. The Scotch nobles on the other 
side are Catholic and will lend their help. So will 
all Wales. 

' The inhabitants of the midland and southern 
provinces, where the taint is deepest, are indolent 
and cowardly, and do not know what war means. 
The towns are more corrupt than the country dis- 
tricts. But the strength of England does not lie, as 
on the Continent, in towns and cities. The town 
population are merchants and craftsmen, rarely or 
never nobles or magnates. 

' The nobility, who have the real power, reside 
with their retinues in castles scattered over the 
land. The wealthy yeomen are strong and honest, 
all attached to the ancient faith, and may be count- 
ed on when an attempt is made for the restoration 
of it. The knights and gentry are generally well 



110 Emjlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

affected also, and will be well to the front. Many 
of their sons are being now educated in our semi- 
naries. Some are in exile, but all, whether at home 
or abroad, will be active on our side. 

'Of the great peers, marquises, earls, viscounts, 
and barons, part are with us, part against us. But 
the latter sort are new creations, whoin the Queen 
has promoted either for heresy or as her personal 
lovers, and therefore universally abhorred. 

' The premier peer of the old stock is the Earl of 
Arundel, sou and heir of the late Duke of Norfolk, 
whom she has imprisoned because he tried to es- 
cape out of the realm. This earl is entirely Cathohc, 
as well as his brothers and kinsmen ; and they have 
powerful vassals who are eager to revenge the injury 
of their lord. The Earl of Northumberland and his 
brothers are Catholics. They too have family 
wrongs to repay, their father having been this year 
murdered in the Tower, and they have placed them- 
selves at my disposal. The Earl of Worcester and 
his heir hate heresy, and are devoted to us with all 
their dependents. The Earls of Cumberland and 
Southampton and Viscount Montague are faithful, 
and have a large following. Besides these we have 
many of the barons — Dacre, Morley, Yaux, Wind- 
sor, Wharton, Lovelace, Stourton, and others be- 
sides. The Earl of Westmoreland, with Lord Paget 
and Sir Francis Englefield, who reside abroad, have 
been incredibly earnest in promoting our enterprise. 
With such support, it is impossible that we can fail. 
These lords and gentlemen, when they see efficient 



Parties in the Slate 111 

help coming to them, will certainly rise, aud for tlie 
following reasons : — 

* 1. Because some of the principals among them 
have given me their j^romise, 

' 2. Because, on hearing that Pope Pius intended 
to excommunicate and depose the Queen sixteen 
years ago, many Catholics did rise. They only 
failed because no support was sent them, and the 
Pope's sentence had not at that time been actually 
published. Now, when the Pope has spoken and 
help is certain, there is not a doubt how they will 
act. 

' 3. Because the Catholics are now much more 
numerous, and have received daily instruction in 
their religion from our priests. There is now no 
orthodox Catholic in the Avliole realm who supposes 
that he is any longer bound in conscience to obey 
the Queen. Books for the occasion have been writ- 
ten and published by us, in which we prove that it 
is not only lawful for Catholics, but their positive 
duty, to fight against the Queen and heresy when 
the Pope bids them ; and these books are so greed- 
ily read among them that when the time comes they 
are certain to take arms. 

' 4. The Catholics in these late years have shown 
their real feeling in the martyrdoms of priests and 
laymen, and in attempts made by several of them 
against the person and State of the Queen. Various 
Catholics have tried to kill her at the risk of their 
own lives, and are still trying. 

* 5, We have three hundred priests dispersed 



112 Etiglish Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

among the houses of the nobles and honest gentry. 
Every day we add to their unmber ; and these 
priests will direct the consciences and actions of 
the Catholics at the great crisis, 

' 6. They have been so harried and so woriied 
that they hate the heretics worse than they hate 
the Turks. 

' Should any of them fear the introduction of a 
Spanish army as dangerous to their national liber- 
ties, there is an easy way to satisfy their scruples. 
Let it be openly declared that the enterprise is 
undertaken in the name of the Pope, and there will 
be no more hesitation. We have ourselves 2:»repared 
a book for their instruction, to be issued at the 
right moment. If his Holiness desires to see it we 
will have it translated into Latin for his use. 

'Before the enterprise is undertaken the sen- 
tence of excommunication and deposition ought to 
be reissued, with special clauses. 

' It must be published in all adjoining Catholic 
countries ; all Catholic kings and princes must be 
admonished to forbid every description of inter- 
course Avith the pretended Queen and her heretic 
subjects, and themselves especially to make or ob- 
serve no treaties with her, to send no embassies to 
her and admit none ; to render no help to her of 
any sort or kind. 

'Besides those who will be our friends for re- 
ligion's sake we shall have others with us — neutrals 
or heretics of milder sort, or atheists, with whom 
England now abounds, who will join us in the in- 



Parties in the State 113 

terest of the Queen of Scots. Among them are 
the Marquis of Winchester, the iEarls of Shrews- 
bury, Derby, Oxford, Rutland, and several other 
peers. The Queen of Scots herself will be of in- 
tinito assistance to us in securing these. She 
knows who are her secret friends. She has been 
able so far, and we trust will always be able, to 
communicate with them. She will see that they are 
ready at the right time. She has often written to 
me to say that she hopes that she will be able to 
escape when the time comes. In her last letter she 
urges me to be vehement with his Holiness in 
pushing on the enterprise, and bids him have no 
concern for her own safety. She believes that she 
can care for herself. If not, she says she Vv^ill lose 
her life willingly in a cause so sacred. 

' The enemies that we shall have to deal with are 
the more determined heretics whom we call Puri- 
tans, and certain creatures of the Queen, the Earls 
of Leicester and Huntingdon, and a few others. 
They will have an advantage in the money in the 
Treasury, the public arms and stores, and the army 
and navy, but none of them have ever seen a camp. 
The leaders have been nuzzled in love-making and 
Court pleasures, and they will all fly at the first 
shock of war. They have not a man who can com- 
mand in the field. In the whole realm there are 
but two fortresses which could stand a three days' 
siege. The people are enervated by long peace, 
and, except a few who have served with the heretics 
in Flanders, cannot bear their arms. Of those few 
8 



Hi English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

some are dead and some liave deserted to the 
Prince of Parma, a clear proof of the real disposition 
to revolt. There is abundance of food and cattle in 
the country, all of which will be at our service and 
cannot be kept from us. Everywhere there are safe 
and roomy harbours, almost all undefended. An 
invading force can be landed with ease, and there 
will be no lack of local pilots. Fifteen thou&aud 
trained soldiers will be sufficient, aided by the 
Catholic English, though, of course, the larger the 
force, particularly if it includes cavalry, the quicker 
the work will be done and the less the expense. 
Practically there will be nothing to overcome save 
an uuwarlike and undisciplined mob. 

' Sixteen times England has been invaded. Twice 
only the native race have repelled the attacking 
force. They have been defeated on every other oc- 
casion, and with a cause so holy and just as ours we 
need not fear to fail. The expenses shall be repaid 
to his Holiness and the Catholic King out of the 
property of the heretics and the Protestant clergy. 
There will be ample in these resources to compen- 
sate all who give us their hand. But the work must 
be done promptly. Delay will be infinitely danger- 
ous. If v.-e put off, as we have done hitherto, the 
Catholics will be tired out and reduced in numbers 
and strength. The nobles and priests now in exile, 
and able to be of such service, will break down in 
poverty. The Queen of Scots may be executed or 
die a natural death, or something may happen to the 
Catholic King or his Holiness. The Queen of Eng- 



Parties in the State 115 

land may herself die, a heretic Governmeut may be 
reconstructed imder a heretic successor, the young 
Scotch king or some other, and our case will then be 
desperate ; whereas if we can prevent this and save 
the Queen of Scots there will be good hope of con- 
verting her son and reducing the whole island to the 
obedience of the faith. Now is the moment. The 
French Governmeut cannot interfere. The Duke of 
Guise will help us for the sake of the faith and for 
his kinswoman. The Turks are quiet. The Church 
was never stronger or more united. Part of Italy is 
under the Catholic King; the rest is in league with 
his Holiness. The revolt in the Low Countries is 
all but crushed. The sea provinces are on the point 
of surrendering. If they give up the contest their 
harbours will be at our service for the invasion. If 
not, the Avay to conquer them is to conquer England. 
' I need not urge how much it imports his Holi- 
ness to undertake this glorious work. He, su- 
premely wise as he is, knows that from this Jezebel 
and her supporters come all the perils which dis- 
turb the Christian world. He knows that heretical 
depravity and all our other miseries can only end 
when this woman is chastised. Ileverence for his 
Holiness and love for my afflicted country force me 
to speak. I submit to his most holy judgment my- 
self and my advice.' 

The most ardent Catholic apologist will hardly 
maintain, in the face of this document, that the Eng- 
lish Jesuits and seminary priests were the innocent 



116 Emjlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

missionaries of relicfion which the modern enemies 
of Elizabeth's Government describe them. Father 
Parsons, the writer of it, was himself the leader and 
director of the Jesuit invasion, and cannot be sup- 
posed to have misrepresented the purpose for which 
they had been sent over. The point of special in- 
terest is the account which he gives of the state of 
parties and generjd feeling in the English people. 
Was there that wide disposition to welcome an in- 
vading army in so large a majority of the nation ? 
The question is supposed to have been triumphantly 
answered three years later, when it is asserted that 
the difference of creed was forgotten, and Catholics 
and Protestants fought side by side for the liber- 
ties of England. But, in the first place, the circum- 
stances were changed. The Queen of Scots no longer 
lived, and the success of the Armada implied a for- 
eign sovereign. But, next, the experiment was not 
tried. The battle was fought at sea, by a fleet four- 
fifths of which was composed of Protestant adventur- 
ers, fitted out and manned by those zealous Puritans 
Avliose fidelity to the Queen Parsons himself admit- 
ted. Lord Howard may have been an Anglo-Catho- 
lic ; Roman Catholic he never was ; but he and his 
brother were the only loj^alists in the House of 
Howard. Arundel and the rest of his kindred were 
all that Parsons claimed for them. How the country 
levies would have behaved had Parma landed is still 
uncertain. It is likely that if the Spanish arm}' had 
gained a first success, there might have been some 
who would have behaved as Sir William Stanley 



Parties in the State 117 

did. It is observable that Parsons mentions Leices- 
ter and Huntingdon as the only, powerful peers on 
whom the Queen could rely, and Leicester, other- 
wise the unfittest man in her dominions, she chose 
to command her land army. 

The Duke of Alva and his master Philip, both of 
them distrusted political priests. Political priests, 
they said, did not understand the facts of things. 
Theological enthusiasm made them credulous of 
what they wished. But Father Parsons's estimate 
is confirmed in all its parts by the letters of Men- 
doza, the Spanish ambassador in London. Men- 
doza was himself a soldier, and his first duty was 
to learn the real truth. It may be taken as certain 
that, with the Queen of Scots still alive to succeed 
to the throne, at the time of the scene in the House 
of Commons, with which I began this lecture, the 
great majority of the country party disliked the Re- 
formers, and were looking forward to the accession 
of a Catholic sovereign, and as a consequence to a 
religious revolution. 

It explains the difficulty of Elizabeth's position 
and the inconsistency of her political action. 
Burghley, Walsingham, Mildmay, Knolles, the elder 
Bacon, were believing Protestants, and would have 
had her put herself openly at the head of a Protest- 
ant European league. They believed that right and 
justice were on their side, that their side was God's 
cause, as they called it, and that. God would care 
for it. Elizabeth had no such complete conviction. 
She disliked dogmatism, Protestant as well as 



118 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Catholic. She ridiculed Mr. Cecil and his brothers 
iu Christ. She thought, like Erasmus, that the ar- 
ticles of faith, for which men were so eager to kill 
one another, Avere subjects which they knew very 
little about, and that every man might think what 
he would on such matters without injury to the com- 
monwealth. To become ' head of the name ' would 
involve open war with the Catholic powers. AVar 
meant war taxes, which more than half her subjects 
would resent and resist. Religion as she understood 
it was a development of law — the law of moral con- 
duct. You could not have two laws in one coun- 
try, and you could not have two religions ; but the 
outward form mattered comparatively little. The 
people she ruled over were divided about these 
forms. They were mainly fools, and if she let them 
each have chaj)els and churches of their own, mole- 
hills would become mountains, and the congregations 
would go from arguing into fighting. With Parlia- 
ment to help her, therefore, she established a Lit- 
urgy, in which those who wished to find the Mass 
could hear the Mass, while those Avho wanted pre- 
destination and justification by faith could find it in 
the Articles. Both could meet under a common 
roof, and use a common service, if they would only 
be reasonable. If they would not be reasonable, the 
Catholics might have their own ritual in their own 
houses, and would not be interfered with. 

This system continued for the first eleven years 
of Elizabeth's reign. No Catliolic, she could 
proudly say, had ever during that time been mo- 



Parties in the State 119 

Tested for his belief. There was a small fine for 
non-attendance at church, but eyen this was rarely 
levied, and by the confession of the Jesuits the 
Queen's policy was succeeding too well. Sensible 
men began to see that the differences of religion 
were not things to quarrel over. Faith was grow- 
ing languid. The elder generation, who had lived 
through the EdAvard and Mary revolutions, were 
satisfied to be left undisturbed ; a new generation 
was growing up, with new ideas ; and so the Church 
of Rome bestirred itself. Elizabeth was excommu- 
nicated. The cycle began of intrigue and conspiracy, 
assassination plots, and Jesuit invasions. Punish- 
ments had to follow, and in spite of herself Eliza- 
beth was driven into what the Catholics could call 
religious persecution. Religious it was not, for the 
seminary priests were missionaries of treason. But 
rehgious it was made to appear. The English 
gentleman who wished to remain loyal, without 
forfeiting his faith, was taught to see that a sov- 
ereign under the Papal curse had no longer a claim 
on his allegiance. If he disobeyed the Pope, he 
had ceased to be a member of the Church of Christ. 
The Papal party grew in coherence, while, opposed 
to them as their purpose came in view, the Prot- 
estants, who at first had been inclined to Lutheran- 
ism, adopted the deeper and sterner creed of Calvin 
and Geneva. The memories of the Marian cruelties 
revived again. They saw themselves threatened 
with a return to stake and fagot. They closed their 
ranks and resolved to die rather than submit again 



120 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

to Antichrist. They might be inferior in numbers. 
A plebiscite in England at that moment would have 
sent Burghley and Walsingham to the scaffold. 
But the Lord could save by few as well as by many. 
Judah had but two tribes out of the twelve, but the 
words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the 
words of Israel. 

One great mistake had been made by Parsons. 
He could not estimate what he could not under- 
stand. He admitted that the inhabitants of the 
towns were mainly heretic— London, Bristol, Ply- 
mouth, and the rest — but he despised them as 
merchants, craftsmen, mean persons who had no 
heart to fight in them. Nothing is more remarkable 
in the history of the sixteenth century than the 
efi'ect of Calvinism in levelling distinctions of rank 
and in steeliner and ennobling" the character of 
common men. In Scotland, in the Low Countries, 
in Prance, there was the same phenomenon. In 
Scotland, the Kirk was the creation of the preachers 
and the people, and peasants and workmen dared 
to stand in the field against belted knights and 
barons, who had trampled on their fathers for 
centuries. The artisans of the Low Countries had 
for twenty years defied the whole power of Spain, 
The Huguenots were not a fifth part of the Prench 
nation, yet defeat could never dishearten them. 
Again and again they forced crown and nobles to 
make terms with them. It was the same in England. 
The allegiance to their feudal leaders dissolved into 
a higher obligation to the King of kings, whose 



Parties in the State 121 

elect they believed themselves to be. Election to 
them was not a theological phantasm, but an enlist- 
ment in the army of God. A little flock they 
might be, but they were a dangerous people to deal 
with, most of all in the towns of the sea. The sea 
was the element of the Reformers. The Popes had 
no jurisdiction over the winds and waves. Rochelle 
was the citadel of the Huguenots. The English 
merchants and mariners had wrongs of their own, 
perpetually renewed, which fed the bitterness of 
their indignation. Touch where they would in 
Spanish ports, the inquisitor's hand was on their 
ships' crews, and the crews, unless they denied 
their faith, were handed over to the stake or the 
galleys. The Calvinists are accused of intolerance. 
I fancy that even in these humane and enlightened 
days we should not be very tolerant if the King of 
Dahomey were to burn every European visitor to 
his dominions who would not worship Mumbo 
Jumbo. The Duke of Alva was not very merciful 
to heretics, but he tried to bridle the zeal of the 
Holy Office in burning the English seamen. Even 
Philip himself remonstrated. It was to no purpose. 
The Holy Office said they would think about it, but 
concluded to go on. I am not the least surprised 
if the English seamen Avere intolerant. I should be 
very much surprised if they had not been. The 
Queen could not protect them. They had to pro- 
tect themselves as they could, and make Spanish 
vessels, when they could catch them, pay for the 
iniquities of their rulers. 



122 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

With sucli a temper rising on botli sides, Eliza- 
beth's policy had but a poor chance. She still 
hoped that the better sense of mankind would keep 
the doctrinal enthusiasts in order. Elizabeth 
wished her subjects would be content to live to- 
gether in unity of spirit, if not in unity of theory, in 
the bond of peace, not hatred, in righteousness of 
life, not in orthodoxy preached by stake and gib- 
bet. She was content to wait and persevere. She 
refused to declare war. War would tear the world in 
jDieces. She knew her danger. She knew that she 
was in constant peril of assassination. She knew 
that if the Protestants were crushed in Scotland, in 
France, and in the Low Countries, her own turn 
would follow. To protect insurgents avowedly 
would be to justify insurrection against herself. But 
what she would not do openly she would do secretly. 
What she would not do herseK she let her subjects 
do. Thousands of English volunteers fought in 
Flanders for the States, and in France for the Hu- 
guenots. When the English Treasury was shut to 
the entreaties of Coligny or William of Orange the 
London citizens untied their purse-strings. Her 
friends in Scotland fared ill. They were encour- 
aged by promises which were not observed, because 
to observe them might bring on war. They com- 
mitted themselves for her sake. They fell one after 
another — Murray, Morton, Gowrie — into bloody 
graves. Others took their places and struggled on. 
The Scotch Reformation was saved. Scotland was 
not allowed to open its arms to an invading army 



Parties in the State 123 

to strike England across the Border. But this was 
held to be their sufficient recompense. They cared 
for their cause as well as for the English Queen, and 
they had their reward. If they saved her they 
saved their own country. She too did not lie on a 
bed of roses. To prevent open war she was expos- 
ing her own life to the assassin. At any moment a 
pistol-shot or a stab with a dagger might add Eliza- 
beth to the list of victims. She knew it, yet she 
went on upon her own policy, and faced in her per- 
son her own share of the risk. One thing only she 
did. If she would not defend her friends and her 
subjects as Queen of England, she left them free 
to defend themselves. She allowed traitors to be 
hanged when they were caught at their work. She 
allowed the merchants to fit out their privateer 
fleets, to defend at their own cost the shores of 
England, and to teach the Spaniards to fear their 
vengeance. 

But how long was all this to last? How long 
were loyal citizens to feel that they were living over 
a loaded mine — throughout their own country, 
throughout the Continent, at Rome and at Madrid, 
at Brussels and at Paris, a legion of conspirators 
were driving their shafts under the English com- 
monwealth. The Queen might be indifierent to her 
own danger, but on the Queen's life hung the peace 
of the whole realm. A stroke of a poniard, a toucli 
of a trigger, and swords would be flying from their 
scabbards in every county ; England would become, 
like France, one wild scene of anarchy and civil 



124 English Seamen hi the Sixteenth Century 

war. No successor had been named. The Queen 
refused to hear a successor declared. Mary Stuart's 
hand had been in every plot since she crossed the 
Border. Twice the House of Commons had peti- 
tioned for her execution. Elizabeth would neither 
touch her life nor allow her hopes of the crown to 
be taken from her. The Bond of Association was 
but a remedy of despair, and the Act of Parliament 
would have passed for little in the tempest which 
would immediately rise. The agony reached a 
height when the fatal news came from the Nether- 
lands that there at last assassination had done its 
work. The Prince of Orange, after many failures, 
had been finished, and a libel was found in the Pal- 
ace at Westminster exhorting the ladies of the 
household to provide a Judith among themselves to 
rid the world of the English Holofernes. 

One part of Elizabeth's sulijects, at any rate, were 
not disposed to sit down in patience under the eter- 
nal nightmare. From Spain was to come the army 
of deliverance for which the Jesuits were so passion- 
ately longing. To the Spaniards the Pope was 
l(3oking for the execution of the Bull of Deposition. 
Father Parsons had left out of his estimate the 
Protestant adventurers of London and Plymouth, 
who, besides their creed and their patriotism, had 
their private wrongs to revenge. Philip might talk 
of peace, and perhaps in weariness might at times 
seriously wish for it ; but between the Englishmen 
whose life was on the ocean and the Spanish In- 
quisition, which had burned so many of them, there 



Pmiies in the State 125 

was no peace possible. To them, Spain was the 
natural enemy. Among the daring spirits who had 
sailed with Drake round the globe, Avho had waylaid 
the Spanish gold ships, and startled the world with 
their exploits, the joy of whose lives had been to 
light Spaniards wherever they could meet with them, 
there was but one wish — for an honest open war. 
The great galleons were to them no objects of ter- 
ror. The Spanish naval power seemed to them a 
'Colossus stuffed with clouts.' They were Protes- 
tants all of them, but their theology was rather prac- 
tical than speculative. If Italians and Spaniards 
chose to believe in the Mass, it was not any affair 
of theirs. Their quarrel was with the insolent pre- 
tence of Catholics to force their creed on others 
with sword and cannon. The spirit which was 
working in them was the genius of freedom. On 
their own element they felt that they could be the 
spiritual tyrants' masters. But as things were go- 
ing, rebellion was likely to break out at home ; their 
homesteads might be burning, their country over- 
run with the Prince of Parma's army, the Inquisition 
at their own doors, and a Catholic sovereign bring- 
incf back the fagots of Smithlield. 

The Reformation at its origin Avas no introduction 
of novel heresies. It was a revolt of the laity of 
Europe against the profligacy and avarice of the 
clergy. The popes and cardinals pretended to be 
the representatives of Heaven. When called to 
account for abuse of their powers, they had behaved 
precisely as mere corrupt human kings and aristoc- 



126 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

racies behave. They had intrigued ; the}' had ex- 
communicated ; they had set nation against nation, 
sovereigns against their subjects ; they had en- 
couraged assassination ; they had made themselves 
infamous by horrid massacres, and had taught one 
half of foolish Christendom to hate the other. The 
hearts of the poor English seamen whose comrades 
had been burnt at Seville to make a Spanish holi- 
day, thrilled with a sacred determination to end 
such scenes. The purpose that was in them broke 
into a wild war-music, as the wind harjD swells and 
screams under the breath of the storm. I found in 
the Record Office an unsigned letter of some inspired 
old sea-dog, written in a bold round hand and 
addressed to Elizabeth. The ships' companies 
which in summer served in Philip's men-of-war 
went in winter in thousands to catch cod on the 
Banks of Newfoundland. ' Give me five vessels,' 
the writer said, ' and I Avill go out and sink them all, 
and the galleons shall rot in Cadiz Harbour for 
want of hands to sail them. But decide. Madam, 
and decide quickly. Time flies, and will not return. 
The tvings of man's life are plumed ivith the feathers 
of death.' 

The Queen did not decide. The five ships were 
not sent, and the poor Castilian sailors caught their 
cod in peace. But in spite of herself Elizabeth 
was driven forward by the tendencies of things. 
The death of the Prince of Orange left the States 
without a Government. The Prince of Parma was 
pressing them hard. Without a leader they were 



Parties in the State 127 

l(jst. They offered themselves to Elizabeth, to be 
incorporated in the English Empir.e. They said 
that if she refused they must either submit to Spain 
or become provinces of France. The Netherlands, 
whether Spanish or French, would be equally dan- 
gerous to England. The Netherlands once brought 
back under the Pope, England's turn would come 
next ; while to accept the proposal meant instant and 
desperate war, both with France and Sj)ain too — 
for France would never allow England again to gain 
a foot on the Continent. Elizabeth knew not what 
to do. She would and she would not. She did not 
accept ; she did not refuse. It was neither No nor 
Yes. Philip, who was as fond of indirect ways as 
herself, proposed to quicken her irresolution. 

The harvest had failed in Galicia, and the popu- 
lation were starving. England grew more corn than 
she wanted, and, under a special promise that the 
crews should not be molested, a fleet of corn-traders 
had gone with cargoes of grain to Corufia, Bilbao, 
and Santander. The King of Sj^ain, on hearing 
that Elizabeth was treating with the States, issued 
a sudden order to seize the vessels, confiscate the 
cargoes, and imprison the men. The order was 
executed. One English ship only was lucky enough 
to escape by the adroitness of her commander. 
The Primrose, of London, lay in Bilbao Eoadswith 
a captain and fifteen hands. The mayor, on receiv- 
ing the order, came on board to look over the ship. 
He then went on shore for a sufficient force to carry 
out the seizure. After he was gone the captain 



12S English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

heard of the fate which was intended for him. 
The mayor returned with two boatloads of sokliers, 
stepped up the hxdder, touched the captain on the 
shoukler, and told him he was a prisoner. The 
Englishmen snatched jiike and cutlass, pistol and 
battle-axe, killed seven or eight of the Spanish 
boarders, threw the rest overboard, and flung stones 
on them as they scrambled into their boats. The 
mayor, who had fallen into the sea, caught a rope 
and was hauled up when the fight was over. The 
cable was cut, the sails hoisted, and in a few minutes 
the Primrose was under way for England, with the 
mayor of Bilbao below the hatches. No second 
vessel got away. If Philip had meant to frighten 
Elizabeth he could not have taken a worse means of 
doing it, for he had exasperated that particular part 
of the English population which was least afraid of 
him. He had broken faith besides, and had seized 
some hundreds of merchants and sailors who had 
gone merely to relieve Spanish distress. Elizabeth, 
as usual, would not act herself. She sent no ships 
from her own navy to demand reparation ; but she 
gave the adventurers a free hand. The London 
and Plymouth citizens determined to read Spain a 
lesson which should make an impression. They 
had the worst fears for the fate of the prisoners ; 
but if they could not save, they could avenge them. 
Sir Francis Drake, who wished for nothing better 
than to be at work again, volunteered his services, 
and a fleet was collected at Plymouth of twenty- 
five sail, every one of them fitted out by private en- 



Parties in the State 129 

terprise. No finer armament, certainly no better- 
equipped armament, ever left the English shores. 
The expenses were, of course, enormous. Of sea- 
men and soldiers there were between two and three 
thousand. Drake's name was worth an army. The 
cost was to be recovered out of the expedition 
somehow ; the Spaniards were to be made to pay 
for it ; but how or when was left to Drake's judg- 
ment. This time there was no second in command 
sent by the friends of Spain to hang upon his arm. 
By universal consent he had the absolute command. 
His instructions were merely to inquire at Spanish 
ports into the meaning of the arrest. Beyond that 
he was left to go where he pleased and do what he 
pleased on his own responsibility. The Queen said 
frankly that if it proved convenient she intended to 
disown him. Drake had no objection to being dis- 
owned, so he could teach the Spaniards to be more 
careful how they handled Englishmen. "What came 
of it will be the subject of the next lecture. Father 
Parsons said the Protestant traders of England had 
grown effeminate and dared not fight. In the ashes 
of their own smoking cities the Spaniards had to 
learn that Father Parsons had misread his country- 
men. If Drake had been given to heroics he might 
have left Virgil's lines inscribed above the broken 
arms of Castile at St. Domingo : 

En ego victa situ quam veri effeta senectus 
Arma inter regum falsa formidine ludit: 
Respice ad hsec. 



9 



LECTUEE VI 

THE GREAT EXPEDITION TO THE WEST INDIES 

Queen Elizabeth and her brotlier-in-law of Spain 
were reluctant cliampions of opposing principles. 
In themselves they had no wish to quaiTel, but 
each was driven forward by fate and circumstance 
— Philip by the genius of the Catholic religion, 
Elizabeth by the enthusiasts for freedom and by 
the advice of statesmen who saw no safet}'' for her 
except in daring. Both wished for peace, and 
refused to see that peace was impossible ; but both 
were comj^elled to yield to their subjects' eagerness. 
Philip had to threaten England with invasion ; 
Elizabeth had to show Philip that England had a 
long arm, which Spanish wisdom would do well to 
fear. It was a singular position. Philip had out- 
raged orthodoxy and dared the anger of Rome by 
maintaining an ambassador at Elizabeth's Court 
after her excommunication. He had laboured for 
a reconciliation with a sincerity which his secret 
letters make it impossible to doubt. He had con- 
descended even to sue for it, in spite of Drake and 
the voyage of the Pelican ; yet he had helped the 
Po]3e to set Ireland in a flame. He had encouraged 
Elizabeth's Catholic subjects in conspiracy after 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 131 

conspiracy. He had approved of attempts to dis- 
pose of her as lie had disposed of the Prince of 
Orange. Elizabeth had rataliated, though with half 
a heart, by letting her soldiers volunteer into the 
service of the revolted Netherlands, by permitting 
English privateers to plunder the Sjoanish colonies, 
seize the gold ships, and revenge their own wrongs. 
Each, perhaps, had wished to show the other what 
an open war would cost them both, and each drew 
back when war appeared inevitable. 

Events went their way. Holland and Zeeland, 
driven to extremity, had petitioned for incorpora- 
tion with England ; as a counter-stroke and a warn- 
ing, Philip had arrested the English corn ships 
and imprisoned the owners and the crews. Her 
own fleet was nothing. The safety of the English 
shores depended on the spirit of the adventurers, 
and she could not afford to check the anger with 
which the news was received. To accept the offer 
of the States was war, and war she would not have. 
Herself, she would not act at all ; but in her usual 
way she might let her subjects act for themselves, 
and plead, as Philip pleaded in excuse for the In- 
quisition, that she could not restrain them. And 
thus it was that in September 1585, Sir Francis 
Drake found himself with a fleet of twenty-five 
privateers and 2,500 men who had volunteered to 
serve with him under his own command. He had 
no distinct commission. The expedition had been 
fitted out as a private undertaking. Neither officers 
nor crews had been engaged for the service of the 



132 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Crown. They received no wages. In the eye of 
the law they were pirates. They were going on 
their own. account to read the King of Spain a 
necessary lesson and pay their expenses at the 
King of Spain's cost. Young Protestant England 
had taken fire. The name of Drake set every 
Protestant heart burning, and hundreds of gallant 
gentlemen had pressed in to join. A grandson of 
Burghley had come, and Edward Winter the 
Admiral's son, and Erancis Knolles the Queen's 
cousin, and Martin Frobisher, and Christopher Car- 
lile. Philip Sidney had wished to make one also 
in the glory; but Philip Sidney was needed else- 
where. The Queen's consent had been won from 
her at a bold interval in her shifting moods. The 
hot fit might pass away, and Burghley sent Drake a 
hint to be off before her humour changed. No word 
was said. On the morning of the 14th of September 
the signal flag was flying from Drake's maintop 
to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted 
after, ' Avas not the most assured of her Majesty's 
perseverance to let them go forward.' Past Ushant 
he would be beyond reach of recall. With light 
winds and calms they drifted across the bay. They 
feU in with a few Erenchmen homeward-bound from 
the Banks, and let them pass uninjured. A large 
Spanish ship which they met next day, loaded with 
excellent fresh salt fish, was counted lawful prize. 
The fish was new and good, and was distributed 
through the fleet. Standing leisurely on, they 
cleared Einisterre and came up with the Isles of 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 133 

Bayoua, at the mouth of Vigo Harbour. They 
dropped anchor there, and ' it was a great matter 
and a royal sight to see them.' The Spanish Gov- 
ernor, Don Pedro Beniadero, sent off with some 
astonishment to know who and what they were. 
Drake answered with a question whether England 
and Spain were at war, and if not why the English 
merchants had been arrested. Don Pedro could but 
say that he knew of no war, and for the merchants 
an order had come for their release. For reply 
Drake landed part of his force on the islands, and 
Don Pedro, not knowing what to make of such 
visitors, found it best to propitiate them with cart- 
loads of wine and fruit. The weather, which had 
been hitherto fine, showed signs of change. The 
wind rose, and the sea with it. The anchorage was 
exposed, and Drake sent Christopher Carlile with 
one of his ships and a few pinnaces, up the harbour 
to look out for better shelter. Their appearance 
created a panic in the town. The alarmed inhabi- 
tants took to their boats, carrying off their property 
and their Church plate. Carlile, who had a Cal- 
vinistic objection to idolatry, took the liberty of 
detaining part of these treasures. From one boat 
he took a massive silver cross belonging to the 
High Church at Vigo ; from another an image of 
Our Lady, which the sailors relieved of her clothes 
and were said, when she was stripped, to have 
treated with some indignity. Carlile's report being 
satisfactory, the whole fleet was brought the next 
day up the harbour and moored above the town. 



134 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

The news had by this time spread into the country. 
The Governor of Galicia came down with all the 
force which he could collect in a hurry. Perhaps he 
was in time to save Vigo itself. Perhaps Drake, 
having other aims in view, did, not care to be de- 
tained over a smaller object. The Governor, at any 
rate, saw that the English were too strong for him 
to meddle with. The best that he could look for was 
to persuade them to go away on the easiest terms. 
Drake and he met in boats for a parley. Drake 
wanted water and fresh provisions. Drake was to 
to be allowed to fui-nish himself undisturbed. He 
had secured what he most wanted. He had sliown 
the King of Spain that he was not invulnerable in 
his own home dominion, and he sailed away unmo- 
lested. Madrid was in consternation. That the 
English could dare insult the first prince in Europe 
on the sacred soil of the Peninsula itself seemed like 
a dream. The Council of State sat for three days 
considering the meaning of it. Drake's name was 
already familiar in Spanish ears. It was not con- 
ceivable that he had come only to inquire after the 
arrested ships and seamen. But what could the 
English Queen be about ? Did she not know that 
she existed only by the forbearance of Philip ? 
Did she know the King of Spain's force ? Did not 
she and her people quake ? Little England, it was 
said by some of these councillors, was to be swal- 
lowed at a mouthful by the King of half the world. 
The old Admiral Santa Cruz was less confident 
about the swallowing. He observed that England 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 135 

bad many teeth, and that instead of boasting of 
Spanish greatness it would be better to provide 
against what she might do with them. Till now the 
corsairs had appeared only in twos and threes. 
With such a fleet behind him Drake might go where 
he pleased. He might be going to the South Seas 
again. He might take Madeira if he liked, or the 
Canary Islands. Santa Cruz himself thought he 
would make for the West Indies and Panama, and 
advised the sending out there instantly every availa- 
ble ship that they had. 

The gold fleet was Drake's real object. He had 
information that it would be on its way io Spain 
by the Cape de Verde Islands, and he had learnt 
the time when it was to be expected. From Vigo 
he sailed for the Canaries, looked in at Palma, with 
'intention to have taken our pleasure there,' but 
found the landing dangerous and the town itself not 
worth the risk. He ran on to the Cape de Verde 
Islands. He had measured his time too narrowly. 
The gold fleet had arrived and had gone. He had 
missed it by twelve hours, * the reason,' as he said 
with a sigh, * best known to God.' The chance of 
prize money was lost, but the political purpose of 
the expedition could still be completed. The Cajoe 
de Verde Islands could not sail away, and a begin- 
ning could be made with Sant lago. Sant lago 
was a thriving, well-populated town, and down in 
Drake's book as specially needing notice, some 
Plymouth sailors having been recently murdered 
there. Christopher Carlile, always handy and 



136 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

trustworthy, was put on shore with a thousand men 
to attack the place on the undefended side. The 
Spanish commander, the bishop, and most of the 
people fled, as at Vigo, into the mountains with 
their plate and money. Carlile entered Avithout 
opposition, and flew St. George's Cross from the 
castle as a signal to the fleet. Drake came in, 
landed the rest of his force, and took possession. 
It happened to be the 17th of November — the anni- 
versary of the Queen's accession — and ships and 
batteries, dressed out w^ith English flags, celebrated 
the occasion with salvoes of cannon. Houses and 
magazines were then searched and plundered. 
Wine was found in large quantities, rich merchan- 
dise for the Indian trade, and other valuables. Of 
gold and silver nothing — it had all been removed. 
Drake waited for a fortnight, hoping that the Span- 
iards would treat for the ransom of the city. When 
they made no sign, he marched twelve miles inland 
to a village where the Governor and the Bishop were 
said to have taken refuge. But the village was 
found deserted. The Spaniards had gone to the 
mountains, where it Avas useless to follow them, and 
were too proud to bargain with a pirate chief. Sant 
lago was a beautifully built city, and Drake would 
perhaps have spared it ; but a ship-boy who had 
strayed was found murdered and barbarously mu- 
tilated. The order was given to bum. Houses, 
magazines, churches, public buildings were turned 
to ashes, and the work being finished Drake went 
on, as Santa Cruz expected, for the Spanish West 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 137 

Indies. The Spaniards were magnificent in all that 
they did and touched. They built their cities in 
their new possessions on the most splendid models 
of the Old World. St. Domingo and Carthagena 
had their castles and cathedrals, palaces, squares, 
and streets, grand and solid as those at Cadiz and 
Seville, and raised as enduring monuments of the 
power and greatness of the Castilian monarchs. To 
these Drake meant to pay a visit. Beyond them 
was the Isthmus, where he had made his first fame 
and fortune, with Panama behind, the depot of the 
Indian treasure. So far all had gone well with him. 
He had taken what he wanted out of Yigo ; he had 
destroyed Sant lago and had not lost a man. Un- 
fortunately he had now a worse enemy to deal with 
than Spanish galleons or Spanish garrisons. He 
was in the heat of the tropics. Yellow fever broke 
out and spread through the fleet. Of those who 
caught the infection few recovered, or recovered 
only to be the wrecks of themselves. It was swift 
in its work. In a few days more than two hundred 
had died. But the north-east trade blew merrily. 
The fleet sped on before it. In eighteen days they 
were in the roads at Dominica, the island of brooks 
and rivers and fruit. Limes and lemons and oranges 
were not as yet. But there were leaves and roots of 
the natural growth, known to the Caribs as antidotes 
to the fever, and the Caribs, when they learnt that 
the English were the Spaniards' enemies, brought 
them this precious remedy and taught them the 
use of it. The ships were washed and ventilated. 



138 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

and the water casks refilled. The infection seemed 
to have gone as suddenly as it appeared, and again 
all was well. 

Christmas was kept at St. Kitts, which was then 
uninhabited. A council of war was held to consider 
what should be done next. St. Domingo lay near- 
est to them. It was the finest of all the Spanish 
colonial cities. It was the capital of the West 
Indian Government, the gi-eat centre of West 
Indian commerce. In the cathedral, before the 
high altar, lay Columbus and his brother Diego. In 
natural wealth no island in the world outrivals Es- 
pinola, w^here the city stood. A vast population 
had collected there, far away from harm, protected 
as they supposed, by the majesty of the mother 
country, the native inhabitants almost exterminat- 
ed, themselves undreaming that any enemy could 
approach them from the ocean, and therefore neg- 
ligent of defence and enjoying themselves in easy 
security. 

Drake was to give them a new experience and a 
lesson for the future. On their way across from 
St. Kitts the adventurers overhauled a small vessel 
bound to the same port as they were. From the 
crew of this vessel they learnt that the harbour at 
St. Domingo was formed, like so many others in the 
West Indies, by a long sandspit, acting as a natural 
breakwater. The entrance was a narrow inlet at 
the extremity of the spit, and batteries had been 
mounted there to cover it. To land on the outer 
side of the sandbank was made impossible by the 



The Great Expedition to the WeM Indies 139 

surf. There was one sheltered point only where 
boats could go on shore, but this was ten miles dis- 
tant from the town. 

Ten miles Avas but a morning's march. Drake 
went in himself in a pinnace, surveyed the landing- 
place, and satisfied himself of its safety. The plan 
of attack at Sant lago was to be exactly repeated. 
On New Year's Eve Christopher Carlile was again 
landed with half the force in the fleet. Drake 
remained with the rest, and prepared to force the 
entrance of the harbour if Carlile succeeded. Their 
coming had been seen from the city. The alarm 
had been given, and the women and children, the 
money in the treasury, the consecrated plate, mov- 
able property of all kinds, were sent off inland as 
a precaution. Of regular troops there seem to have 
been none, but in so populous a city there was 
no difficulty in collecting a respectable force to 
defend it. The hidalgos formed a body of cavalry. 
The people generally were unused to arms, but they 
were Spaniards and brave men, and did not mean 
to leave their homes without a fight for it. Carlile 
lay still for the night. He marched at eight in the 
morning on New Year's Day, advanced leism-ely, 
and at noon found himself in front of the wall. So 
far he had met no resistance, but a considerable 
body of horse — gentlemen and their servants chiefly 
— charged down on him out of the bush and out of 
the town. He formed into a square to receive 
them. They came on gallantly, but were received 
with pike and shot, and after a few attempts gave 



140 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

up and retired. Two gates were in front of Carlile, 
with a road to eacli leading through a jungle. At 
each gate were cannon, and the jungle was lined 
with musketeers. He divided his men and attacked 
both together. One party he led in person. The 
cannon opened on him, and an Englishman next 
to him was killed. He dashed on, leaving the 
Spaniards no time to reload, carried the gate at a 
rush, and cut his way through the streets to the 
great square. The second division had been 
equally successful, and St. Domingo was theirs ex- 
cept the castle, which was still untaken. Carlile's 
numbers were too small to occupy a large city. He 
threw up barricades and fortified himself in the 
square for the night. Drake brought the fleet in at 
daybreak, and landed guns, when the castle sur- 
rendered. A messenger— a negro boy — was sent 
to the governor to learn the terms which he was 
prepared to offer to save the city from pillage. The 
Spanish officers were smarting with the disgrace. 
One of them struck the lad through the body with 
a lance. He ran back bleeding to the English lines 
and died at Drake's feet. Sir Francis was a danger- 
ous man to provoke. Such doings had to be prompt- 
ly stopped. In the part of the town which he occu- 
pied was a monastery with a number of friars in it. 
The religious orders, he well knew, were the chief 
instigators of the policy which was maddening the 
world. He sent two of these friars with the pro- 
vost-marshal to the spot where the boy had been 
struck, promptly hanged them, and then despatched 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 141 

another to tell the governor that he would hang 
two more every day at the same place till the officer 
was punished. The Spaniards had long learnt to 
call Drake the Draque, the serpent, the devil. They 
feared that the devil might be a man of his word. 
The offender was surrendered. It was not enough. 
Drake insisted that they should do justice on him 
themselves. The governor found it prudent to com- 
ply, and the too hasty officer was executed. 

The next point was the ransom of the city. The 
Spaniards still hesitating, 200 men were told off 
each morning to burn, while the rest searched the 
private houses, and palaces, and magazines. Gov- 
ernment House was the grandest building in the 
New World. It was approached by broad flights 
of marble stairs. Great doors opened on a spacious 
gallery leading into a great hall, and above the por- 
tico hung the arms of Spain — a globe representing 
the world, a horse leaping upon it, and in the horse's 
mouth a scroll with the haughty motto, ' Non sufficit 
orbis.' Palace and scutcheon were levelled into 
dust by axe and gunpowder, and each day for a 
month the destruction went on, Drake's demands 
steadily growing and the unhappy governor vainly 
pleading impossibility. 

Vandalism, atrocity unheard of among civilised 
nations, dishonour to the Protestant cause, Drake 
deserving to swing at his own yardarm ; so indig- 
nant Liberalism shrieked, and has not ceased shriek- 
ing. Let it be remembered that for fifteen years 
the Spaniards had been burning English seamen 



142 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

wlienever they could catcli them, plotting to kill the 
Queen and reduce England itself into vassaldom to 
the Pope. The English nation, the loyal part of it, 
were replying to the wild pretension by the hands 
of their own admiral. If Philip chose to counte- 
nance assassins, if t]ie Holy Office chose to burn 
English sailors as heretics, those heretics had a 
right to make Spain understand that such a game 
was dangerous, that, as Santa Cruz had said, they 
had teeth and could use them. 

It was found in the end that the governor's plea 
of impossibility was more real than was at first be- 
lieved. The gold and silver had been really carried 
off. All else that was valuable had been burnt or 
taken by the English. The destruction of a city so 
solidly built was tedious and difficult. Nearly half 
of it was blown up. The cathedral was spared, 
perhaps as the resting-place of Columbus. Drake 
had other work before him. After staying a month 
in undisturbed occupation he agreed to accept 
25,000 ducats as a ransom for what was left and 
sailed away. 

It was now February. The hot season was 
coming on, when the climate would be dangerous. 
There was still much to do and the time was run- 
ning short. Panama had to be left for another op- 
portunity. Drake's object was to deal blows which 
would shake the faith of Europe in the Spanish 
power. Carthagena stood next to St. Domingo 
among the Spanish West Indian fortresses. The 
situation was strong. In 1740 Carthagena was able 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 143 

to beat off Vernon and a great English fleet. But 
Drake's crews were in high health and spirits, and 
he determined to see what he could do with it. 
Surprise was no longer to be hoped for. The alarm 
had spread over the Caribbean Sea. But in their 
present humour they were ready to go anywhere 
and dare anything, and to Carthagena they went. 

Drake's name carried terror before it. Every 
non-combatant — old men, women and children — 
had been cleared out before he arrived, but the 
rest prepared for a smart defence. The harbour at 
Carthagena was formed, as at St. Domingo and 
Port Eoyal, by a sandspit. The spit was long, 
narrow, in places not fifty yards wide, and covered 
with prickly bush, and along this, as before, it was 
necessary to advance to reach the city. A trench 
had been cut across at the neck, and a stiff barri- 
cade built and armed Avith heavy guns ; behind 
this were several hundred musketeers, while the 
bush was full of Indians with poisoned arrows. 
Pointed stakes — poisoned also — had been driven 
into the ground along the approaches, on which to 
step was death. Two large galleys, full of men, 
patrolled inside the bank on the harbour edge, and 
with these preparations the inhabitants hoped to 
keep the dreadful Drake from reaching them. 
Carlile, as before, was to do the land fighting. He 
was set on shore three miles down the spit. The 
tide is slight in those seas, but he waited till it was 
out, and advanced along the outer shore at low- 
water mark. He was thus covered by the bank 



144 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

from the harbour galleys, and their shots passed 
over him. Two squadrons of horse came out, but 
could do nothing to him on the broken ground. 
Tlie English pushed on to the wall, scarcely losing 
a man. They charged, scaled the parapets, and 
drove the Spanish infantry back at point of pike. 
Carlile killed their commander with his own hand. 
The rest fled after a short struggle, and Drake was 
master of Carthagena. Here for six weeks he re- 
mained. The Spaniards withdrew out of the city, 
and there were again parleys over the ransom 
money. Courtesies were exchanged among the 
officers. Drake entertained the governor and his 
suite. The governor returned the hospitality and 
received Drake and the English captains. Drake 
demanded 100,000 ducats. The Spaniards offered 
30,000, and protested that they could pay no more. 
The dispute might have lasted longer, but it was cut 
short by the reappearance of the yelloAV fever in the 
fleet, this time in a deadlier form. The Spanish 
offer w^as accepted, and Carthagena was left to its 
owners. It was time to be off, for the heat was 
telling, and the men began to drop with appalling- 
rapidity. Nombre de Dios and Panama were near 
and under their lee, and Drake threw longing eyes 
on what, if all else had been well, might have 
proved an easy capture. But on a review of their 
strength, it was found that there were but 700 fit 
for duty who could be spared for the service, and a 
council of war decided that a march across the Isth- 
mus with so small a force was too dangerous to be 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 145 

ventured. Eiiougli liad been done for glory, enough 
for the political impression to be made in Em-ope. 
The King of Spain had been dared in his own do- 
minions. Three fine Spanish cities had been cap- 
tured by storm and held to ransom. In other as- 
pects the success had fallen short of expectation. 
This time they had taken no Oacafuego with a 
year's produce of the mines in her hold. The plate 
and coin had been carried oif, and the spoils had 
been in a form not easily turned to value. The ex- 
pedition had been fitted out by private persons to 
pay its own cost. The result in money was but 
G0,000?. Forty thousand had to be set aside for ex- 
penses. There remained but 20,000^ to be shared 
among the ships' companies. Men and ofiicers had 
entered, high and low, without wages, on the chance 
of what they might get. The ofiicers and owners 
gave a significant demonstration of the splendid 
spirit in which they had gone about their work. 
They decided to relinquish their own claims on the 
ransom paid for Carthagena, and bestow the same 
on the common seamen, ' Avishing it were so much 
again as would be a sufiicient reward for their pain- 
ful endeavour.' 

Thus all were well satisfied, conscious all that 
they had done their duty to their Queen and 
country. The adventurers' fleet turned homewards 
at the beginning of April. What men could do 
they had achieved. Thej could not fight against 
the pestilence of the tropics. For many days the 
yellow fever did its deadly work among them, and 
10 



146 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

ouly slowly abated. They were delayed by calms 
and unfavourable winds. Their water ran short. 
They had to land again at Cape Antonio, the 
western point of Cuba, and sink wells to supply 
themselves. Drake himself, it was observed, 
worked with spade and bucket, like the meanest 
person in the whole company, always foremost 
where toil was to be endured or honour won, the 
wisest in the devising of enterprises, the calmest in 
danger, the first to set an example of energy in 
difficulties, and, above all, the firmest in maintain- 
ing order and discipline. The fever slackened as 
they reached the cooler latitudes. They worked 
their way up the Bahama Channel, going north to 
avoid the trades. The French Protestants had 
been attempting to colonise in Florida. The 
Spaniards had built a fortress on the coast, to ob- 
serve their settlements and, as occasion offered, cut 
Huguenot throats. As he passed by Drake paid 
this fortress a visit and wiped it out. Farther 
north again he was in time to save the remnant of 
an English settlement, raslil}' planted there by 
another brilliant servant of Queen Elizabeth. 

Of all the famous Elizabethans Sir Walter Raleigh 
is the most romantically interesting. His splen- 
did and varied gifts, his chequered fortunes, and 
his cruel end, will embalm his memory in English 
history. But Ealeigh's great accomplishments 
promised more than they performed. His hand 
was in everything, but of work successfully com- 
pleted he had less to shoAV than others far his in- 



The Great Expedition to tJie West Indies 147 

feriors, to whom fortune had offered fewer oppor- 
tunities. He was engaged in a hundi'ed schemes at 
once, and in every one of them there was always 
some taint of self, some personal ambition or private 
object to be gained. His life is a record of under- 
takings begun in enthusiasm, maintained imper- 
fectly, and failures in the end. Among his other 
adventui'es he had sent a colony to Virginia. He 
had imagined, or had been led by others to believe, 
that there was an Indian Court there brilliant as 
Montezuma's, an enlightened nation crying to be 
admitted within the charmed circle of Gloriana's 
subjects. His princes and princesses proved things 
of air, or mere Indian savages ; and of Raleigh there 
remains nothing in Virginia save the name of the 
city which is called after him. The starving sur- 
vivors of his settlement on the Roanoke River were 
taken on board by Drake's returning squadron and 
carried home to England, where they all arrived 
safely, to the glory of God, as our pious ancestors 
said and meant in unconventional sincerity, on the 
28th of July, 1586. 

The expedition, as I have said, barely paid its 
cost. In the shape of wages the officers received 
nothing, and the crews but a few pounds a man ; 
but there was, perhaps, not one of them who was 
not better pleased with the honour which he had 
brought back than if he had come home loaded with 
doubloons. 

Startled Catholic Europe meanwhile rubbed its 
eyes and began to see that the ' enterprise of Eng- 



148 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

land,' as tlie intended invasion was called, might 
not be the easy thing which the seminary priests 
described it. The seminary priests had said that 
so far as England was Protestant at all it w^as 
Protestant only by the accident of its Government, 
that the immense majority of the people were Cath- 
olic at heart and were thirsting for a return to the 
fold, that on the first appearance of a Spanish army 
of deliverance the whole edifice which Elizabeth 
had raised would crumble to the ground. I suppose 
it is true that if the world had then been advanced 
to its present point of progress, if there had been 
then recognised a Divine right to rule in the numeri- 
cal majority, even without a Spanish army the 
seminary priests would have had their way. Eliza- 
beth's Parliaments were controlled by the municipal- 
ities of the towns, and the towns were Protestant. 
APa^rliament chosen by universal suffrage and elec- 
toral districts would have sent Cecil and Walsingham 
into private life or to the scaffold, replaced the Mass 
in the churches, and reduced the Queen, if she had 
l^een left on the throne, into the humble servant of 
the Pope and Philip. It Avould not perhaps have 
lasted, but that, so far as I can judge, would have 
l)een the immediate result, and instead of a Refor- 
mation we should have had the light come in the 
shape of lightning. But I have often asked my 
Radical friends what is to be done if out of every 
hundred enlightened voters two-thirds will give 
their votes one way, but are afraid to fight, and the 
remaining third will not only vote but will fight too 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 149 

if the poll goes against them. Which has then the 
right to rule ? I can tell them which will rule. 
The brave and resolute minority will rule. Plato 
says that if one man was stronger than all the rest 
of mankind he would rule all the rest of man- 
kind. It must be so, because there is no apj)eaL 
The majority must be prepared to assert their 
Divine right with their right hands, or it will go the 
way that other Divine rights have gone before. I 
will not believe the world to have been so ill-con- 
structed that there are rights which cannot be en- 
forced. It appears to me that the true right to rule 
in any nation lies with those who are best and 
bravest, whether their numbers are large or small ; 
and three centuries ago the best and bravest part of 
this English nation had determined, though they 
were but a third of it, that Pope and Spaniard 
should be no masters of theirs. Imagination goes 
for much in such excited times. To the imagination 
of Europe in the sixteenth century the power of 
Spain appeared irresistible if she chose to exert it. 
Heretic Dutchmen might rebel in a remote province, 
English pirates might take liberties Avith Spanish 
traders, but the Prince of Parma was making the 
Dutchmen feel their master at last. The pirates 
were but so many wasps, with venom in their stings, 
but powerless to affect the general tendencies of 
things. Except to the shrewder eyes of such men 
as Santa Cruz the strength of the English at sea 
had been left out of count in the calculations of the 
resources of Elizabeth's Government. Suddenly a 



150 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

fleet of these same pirates, sent out, unassisted by 
their sovereign, by the private impulse of a few in- 
dividuals, had insulted the sacred soil of Spain her- 
self, sailed into Vigo, pillaged the churches, taken 
anything that they required, and had gone away 
unmolested. They had attacked, stormed, burnt, or 
held to ransom three of Spain's proudest colonial 
cities, and had come home uufought with. The 
Catholic conspirators had to recognise that they 
had a worse enemy to deal with than Puritan con- 
troversialists or spoilt Court favourites. The Prot- 
estant English mariners stood between them and 
their prey, and had to be encountered on an ele- 
ment which did not bow to popes or princes, 
before Mary Stuart was to wear Elizabeth's crown 
or Cardinal Allen be enthroned at Canterbury. It 
was a revelation to all parties. Elizabeth herself 
had not expected — perhaps had not wished— so 
signal a success. War was now looked on as in- 
evitable. The Spanish admirals represented that 
the national honour required revenge for an injury 
so open and so insolent. The Pope, who had been 
long goading the lethargic Philip into action, be- 
lieved that now at last he would be compelled to 
move ; and even Philip himself, enduring as he was, 
had been roused to perceive that intrigues and con- 
spiracies would serve his turn no longer. He must 
put out his strength in earnest, or his own Span- 
iards might turn upon him as unworthy of the 
crown of Isabella. Very reluctantly he allowed the 
truth to be brought home to him. He had never 



The Great Expedition to the West Indies 151 

liked tlie thoiiglit of invading England. If he con- 
quered it, lie would not be allowed to keep it. 
Mary Stuart would have to be made queen, and 
Mary Stuart was part French, and might be wholly 
French. The burden of the work would be thrown 
entirely on his shoulders, and his own reward was 
to be the Church's blessing and the approval of his 
own conscience — nothing else, so far as he could 
see. The Pope would recover his annates, his 
Peter's pence, and his indulgence market. 

If the thing was to be done, the Pope, it was 
clear, ought to pay part of the cost, and this was 
what the Pope did not intend to do if he could 
help it. The Poj)e was flattering himself that 
Drake's performance would compel Spain to go to 
war with England whether he assisted or did not. 
In this matter Philip attempted to undeceive his 
Holiness. He instructed Olivarez, his ambassador 
at Rome, to tell the Pope that nothing had been yet 
done to him by the English which he could not 
overlook, and unless the Pope would come down 
with a handsome contribution peace he would 
make. The Pope stormed and raged ; he said he 
doubted whether Philip was a true son of the Church 
at all ; he flung plates and dishes at the servants' 
heads at dinner. He said that if he gave Philip 
money Philip would put it in his pocket and laugh 
at him. Not one maravedi would he give till a 
Spanish army was actually landed on English shores, 
and from this resolution he was not to be moved. 

To Philip it was painfully certain that if he in- 



152 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

vaded and conquered England the English Catho- 
lics would insist that he must make Mary Stuart 
queen. He did not like Mary Stuart. He disap- 
proved of her character. He distrusted her prom- 
ises. Spite of Jesuits and seminary priests, he be- 
lieved that she was still a Frenchwoman at heart, 
and a bad woman besides. Yet something he must 
do for the outraged honour of Castile. He con- 
cluded, in his slow way, that he would collect a fleet, 
the largest and best-appointed that had ever floated 
on the sea. He would send or lead it in person to 
the English Channel. He would command the sit- 
uation with an overwhelming force, and then would 
choose some coiu'se which would be more conven- 
ient to himself than to his Holiness at Home. On 
the whole he was inclined to let Elizabeth continue 
queen, and forget and forgive if she would put away 
her Walsinghams and her Drakes, and would prom- 
ise to be good for the future. If she remained ob- 
stinate his great fleet would cover the passage of 
the Prince of Parma's army, and he would then dic- 
tate his own terms in London. 



LECTURE VII 



ATTACK ON CADIZ 



I RECOLLECT being told when a boy, on sending 
in a bad translation of Horace, that I ought to 
remember that florace was a man of intelligence 
and did not write nonsense. The same caution 
should be borne in mind by students of history. 
They see certain things done by kings and states- 
men which they believe they can iuterj^ret by as- 
suming such persons to have been knaves or idiots. 
Once an explanation given from the baser side of 
human nature, they assume that it is necessarily 
the right one, and they make their Horace into a 
fool without a misgiving that the folly may lie else- 
where. Remarkable men and women have usually 
had some rational motive for their conduct, which 
may be discovered, if we look for it with our eyes 
open. 

Nobody has suffered more from bad translators 
than Elizabeth. The circumstances of Queen Eliz- 
abeth's birth, the traditions of her father, the inter- 
ests of England, and the sentiments of the party 
who had sustained her claim to the succession, 
obliged her on coming to the throne to renew the 
separation from the Papacy, The Church of Eng- 



154: English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

land was re-establislied on an Anglo-Catholic basis, 
which the rival factions might interpret each in their 
OAvn way. To allow more than one form of public 
worship would have led in the heated temper of 
men's minds to quarrels and civil wars. But con- 
science might be left free under outward conformity, 
and those whom the Litui'gy did not suit might use 
their own ritual in their private houses. Elizabeth 
and her wise advisers believed that if her subjects 
could be kept from fighting and killing one another, 
and were not exasperated by outward displays of 
difference, they would learn that righteousness of 
life was more important than orthodoxy, and to es- 
timate at their real value the rival dogmas of theol- 
ogy. Had time permitted the experiment to have a 
fair trial, it would perhaps have succeeded, but, un- 
happily for the Queen and for England, the fire of 
controversy was still too hot under the ashes. 
Protestants and Catholics had been taught to look 
on one another as enemies of God, and were still 
reluctant to take each other's hands at the bidding 
of an Act of Parliament. The more moderate of the 
Catholic laity saw no difference so great between the 
English service and the Mass as to force them to 
desert the churches where their fathers had wor- 
shipped for centuries. They petitioned the Council 
of Trent for permission to use the English Prayer 
Book; and had the Council consented, religious 
dissension would have dissolved at last into an in- 
nocent difference of opinion. But the Council and 
the Pope had determined that there should be no 



Attack on Cadiz 155 

compromise with heresy, and the request was re- 
fused, though it was backed by Philip's ambassador 
in London. The action of the Papacy obhged the 
Queen to leave the Administration in the hands of 
Protestants, on whose loyalty she could rely. As 
the struggle with the Reformation spread and deep- 
ened she was compelled to assist indirectly the 
Protestant party in France and Scotland. But she 
still adhered to her own principle ; she refused to 
put herself at the head of a Protestant League. She 
took no step without keeping open a line of retreat 
on a contrary policy. She had Catholics in her 
Privy Council who Avere pensioners of Spain. She 
filled her household with Catholics, and many a time 
di'ove Burghley distracted by listening to them at 
critical moments. Her constant effort was to disarm 
the antagonism of the adherents of the old belief, 
by admitting them to her confidence, and showing 
them that one part of her subjects was as dear to 
her as another. 

For ten years she went on struggling. For ten 
years she was proudly able to say that during all 
that time no Catholic had suffered for his belief 
either in purse or person. The advanced section 
of the Catholic clergy was in despair. They saw 
the consciences of their flocks benumbed and their 
faith growing lukewarm. They stirred up the re- 
bellion of the North. They persuaded Pius V. to 
force them to a sense of their duties by declaring 
Elizabeth excommunicated. They sent their mis- 
sionaries through the English counties to recover 



156 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

sheep that were straying, and teach the sin of sub- 
mission to a sovereign whom the Pope had deposed. 
Then had followed the Eidolfi plot, deliberately en- 
couraged by the Pope and Spain, which had com- 
pelled the Government to tighten the reins. One 
conspiracy had followed another. Any means were 
held legitimate to rid the world of an enemy of 
God. The Queen's character Avas murdered by the 
foulest slanders, and a hundred daggers were sharp- 
ened to murder her person. The King of Spain 
had not advised the excommunication, because he 
knew that he would be expected to execute it, and 
he had other things to do. When called on to act, 
he and Alva said that if the English Catholics wanted 
Spanish help they must do something for them- 
selves. To do the priests justice, they were brave 
enough. What they did, and how far they had suc- 
ceeded in making the comitry disaffected, Father 
Parsons has told you in the paper which I read to 
you in a former lecture. Elizabeth refused to take 
care of herself. She would show no distrust. She 
would not dismiss the Catholic ladies and gentle- 
men from the household. She would allow no penal 
laws to be enforced against Catholics as such. Ee- 
peated conspiracies to assassinate her were detected 
and exposed, but she would take no warning. She 
would have no bodyguard. The utmost that she 
would do was to allow the Jesuits and seminary 
priests, who, by Parsons's OAvn acknowledgment were 
sowing rebellion, to be banished the realm, and if 
they persisted in remaining afterwards, to be treated 



Attack on Cadiz 157 

as traitors. When executions are treated as mar- 
tyrdoms, candidates will never be wanting for the 
crown of glory, and the flame only bnrnt the hotter. 
Tyburn and the quartering knife was a horrid busi- 
ness, and Elizabeth sickened over it. She hated 
the severity which she was compelled to exercise. 
Her name was defiled with the gTossest calumnies. 
She knew that she might be murdered any day. For 
herself she was proudly indiiferent ; but her death 
would and must be folloAved by a furious civil war. 
She told the Privy Council one day after some 
stormy scene, that she would come back afterwards 
and amuse herself with seeing the Queen of Scots 
making their heads fly. 

Philip was weary of it too. He had enough to do 
in ruling his own dominions without quarrelling for 
ever with his sister-in-law. He had seen that she 
had subjects, few or many, who, if he struck, would 
strike back again. English money and English 
volunteers were keeping alive the war in the Neth- 
erlands. English privateers had plundered his gold 
ships, destroyed his commerce, and burnt his West 
Indian cities — all this in the interests of the Pope, 
who gave him fine words in plenty, but who, when 
called on for money to help in the English conquest, 
only flung about his dinner plates. The Duke of 
Alva, while he was alive, and the Prince of Parma, 
who commanded in the Netherlands in Alva's place, 
advised peace if peace could be had on reasonable 
terms. If Elizabeth would consent to withdraw her 
help from the Netherlands, and would allow the 



158 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Englisli Catholics the tacit toleration with which 
her reign had begun, they were of opinion, and 
Philip was of opinion too, that it would be better 
to forgive Drake and St. Domingo, abandon Mary 
Stuart and the seminary priests, and meddle no 
more with EngUsh internal politics. 

Tired with a condition which was neither war nor 
peace, tired with hanging traitors and the endless 
problem of her sister of Scotland, Elizabeth saw no 
reason for refusing offers which would leave her in 
peace for the rest of her own life. Philii3, it was 
said, would restore the Mass in the churches in 
Holland. She might stipulate for such liberty of 
conscience to the Holland Protestants as she was 
herself willing to allow the English Catholics. She 
saw no reason why she should insist on a liberty of 
public worship which she had herself forbidden at 
home. She did not see why the Hollanders should 
be so precise about hearing Mass. She said she 
would rather hear a thousand Masses herself than 
have on her conscience the crimes committed for 
the Mass or against it. She w^ould not have her 
realm in perpetual torment for Mr. Cecil's brothers 
in Christ. 

This was Elizabeth's personal feeling. It could 
not be openly avowed. The States might then sur- 
render to Philip in despair, and obtain better securi- 
ties for their political liberties than she was ready 
to ask for them. They might then join the Span- 
iards and become her mortal enemies. But she had 
a high opinion of her own statecraft. Her Catholic 



Attach on Cadiz 159 

friends assured her that, ouce at peace with Philip, 
she would be safe from all the world. At this mo- 
ment accident revealed suddenly another chasm 
v/hich was opening unsuspected at her feet. 

Both Philip and she were really wishing for peace. 
A treaty of peace between the Catholic King and an 
excommunicated princess would end the dream of 
a Catholic revolution in England. If the English 
peers and gentry saw the censures of the Church 
set aside so lightly by the most orthodox prince in 
Europe, Parsons and his friends would preach in 
vain to them the obligation of rebellion. If this 
deadly negotiation was to be broken oil', a blow must 
be struck, and struck at once. There was not a mo- 
ment to be lost. 

The enchanted prisoner at Tutbury was the sleep- 
ing and waking dream of Catholic chivalry. The 
brave knight who would slay the dragon, deliver 
Mary Stuart, and place her on the usurper's throne, 
would outdo Orlando or St. George, and be sung of 
for ever as the noblest hero who liad ever wielded 
brand or spear. Many a young British heart had 
thrilled with hope that for him the enterprise was 
reserved. One of these was a certain Anthony Bab- 
ington, a gentleman of some fortune in Derbyshire. 
A seminary priest named Ballard, excited, like the 
rest, by the need of action, and anxious to prevent 
the peace, fell in with this Babington, and thought 
he had found the man for his work. Elizabeth dead 
and Mary Stuart free, there would be no more talk 
of peace. A plot Avas easily formed. Half a dozen 



160 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

gentlemen, five of tliem belonging to or connected 
with Elizabeth's own household, were to shoot or 
stab her and escape in the confusion; Babington 
was to make a dash on Mary Stuart's prison-house 
and carry her off to some safe place ; while Ballard 
undertook to raise the Catholic peers and have her 
proclaimed queen. Elizabeth once removed, it was 
supposed that they would not hesitate. Parma 
would bring over the Spanish army from Dunkirk. 
The Protestants would be paralysed. All would be 
begun and ended in a few weeks or even days. The 
Catholic religion would be re-established and the 
hated heresy would be trampled out for ever. Mary 
Stuart had been consulted and had enthusiastically 
agreed. 

This interesting lady had been lately profuse in 
her protestations of a desire for reconcihation with 
her dearest sister. Elizabeth had almost believed 
her sincere. Sick of the endless trouble with Mary 
Stuart and her pretensions and schemings, she had 
intended that the Scotch queen should be included 
in the treaty with Philip, Avitli an implied recogni- 
tion of her right to succeed to the English throne 
after Elizabeth's death. It had been necessary, how- 
ever, to ascertain in some way whether her protesta- 
tions were sincere. A secret watch had been kept 
over her correspondence, and Babington's letters 
and her own answers had fallen into Walsingham's 
hands. There it all Avas in her own cipher, the key 
to which had been betrayed by the carelessness of a 
confederate. The six gentlemen who were to have 



Attack on Cadiz 161 

rewarded Elizabeth's confidence by killing her were 
easily recognised. They were seized, with Babing- 
ton and Ballard, when they imagined themselves on 
the eve of their triumph. Babington flinched and 
confessed, and they were all hanged. Mary Stuart 
herself had outworn compassion. Twice already onf 
the discovery of her earlier plots the House of Com-} 
mons had petitioned for her execution. For this 
last piece of treachery she was tried at Fotheringay 
before a commission of Peers and Privy Councillors. 
She denied her letters, but her complicity was 
proved beyond a doubt. Parhament was called, and 
a third time insisted that the long drama should now 
be ended and loyal England be allowed to breathe 
in peace. Elizabeth signed the warrant. France, 
Spain, any other power in the world would have 
long since made an end of a competitor so des- 
perate and so incurable. Tom by many feelings — ,' 
natural pity, dread of the world's opinion — Eliza- • 
beth paused before ordering the warrant to be exe- i 
cuted. If nothing had been at stake but her own 
life, she would have left the lady to weave fresh 
plots and at last, perhaps, to succeed. If the na- 
tion's safety required an end to be made with her, 
she felt it hard that the duty should be thrown on 
herself. Where were all those eager champions who 
had signed the Association Bond, who had talked 
so loudly ? Could none of them be foimd to recol- 
lect their oaths and take the law into their own 
hands ? 

Her Council, Burghley, and the rest, knowing her 
11 



162 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

disposition and feeling tliat it was life or death to 
English liberty, took the responsibility on them- 
selves. They sent the warrant down to Fotherin- 
gay at their own risk, leaving their mistress to deny, 
if she pleased, that she had meant it to be executed ; 
and the wild career of Mary Stuart ended on the 
scaffold. 

They knew what they were immediately doing. 
They knew that if treason had a meaning Mary 
Stuart had brought her fate upon herself. They did 
not, perhaps, realise the full effects that were to fol- 
low, or that with Mary Stuart had vanished the last 
serious danger of a Catholic insurrection in Eng- 
land ; or perhaps the}' did reahse it, and this was 
what decided them to act. 

I cannot dwell on this here. As long as there 
was a Catholic princess of English blood to succeed 
to the throne, the allegiance of the Catholics to 
Elizabeth had been easily shaken. If she was spared 
now, every one of them would look on her as their 
future sovereign. To overthrow Elizabeth might 
mean the loss of national independence. The Queen 
of Scots gone, they were paralysed by divided coun- 
sels, and love of country proved stronger than their 
creed. 

Wliat concerns us specially at present is the effect 
on the King of Spain. The reluctance of Philip to 
undertake the English enterprise (the ' empresa,' as 
it was generally called) had arisen from a fear that 
when it was accomplished he would lose the fruit of 
his labours. He could never assure himself that if 



Attack on Cadiz 163 

lie placed Mary Stuart on the throne she would not 
become eventually French. He now learnt that she 
had bequeathed to himself her claims on the English 
succession. He had once been titular King of Eng- 
land. He had pretensions of his OAvn, as in the de- 
scent from Edward III. The Jesuits, the Catholic 
enthusiasts throughout Europe, assured him that if 
he would now take up the cause in earnest, he might 
make England a province of Spain. There were still 
difficulties. He might hope that the English Catho- 
lic laity would accept him, but he could not be sure 
of it. He could not be sm-e that he would have the 
support of the Pope. He continued, as the Conde 
de Feria said scornfully of him, ' meando en vado,' 
a phrase which I cannot translate ; it meant hesitat- 
ing when he ought to act. But he saw, or thought 
he saw, that he could now take a stronger attitude 
towards Elizabeth as a claimant to her throne. If 
the treaty of peace was to go forward, he could raise 
his terms. He could insist on the restoration of the 
Catholic religion in England. The States of the 
Low Countries had made over five of their strongest 
towns to Elizabeth as the price of her assistance. 
He could insist on her restoring them, not to the 
States, but to himself. Could she be brought to 
consent to such an act of perfidy, Parma and he 
both felt that the power would then be gone from 
her, as effectually as Samson's when his locks were 
clipped by the harlot, and they could leave her then, 
if it suited them, on a throne which would have be- 
come a pillory — for the finger of scorn to point at. 



16-i English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

With siicli a view before him it was more than 
ever necessary for Philip to hurry forward the prep- 
arations which he had ah-eady commenced. Tlie 
more formidable he could make himself, the better 
able he would be to frighten Elizabeth into sub- 
mission. 

Every dockyard in Spain was set to work, build- 
ing galleons and collecting stores. Santa Cruz 
would command. Philip was himself more resolved 
than ever to accompany the expedition in person 
and dictate from the English Channel the condi- 
tions of the pacification of Europe. 

Secrecy was no longer attempted — indeed, was no 
longer possible. All Latin Christendom was pal- 
pitating with expectation. At Lisbon, at Cadiz, at 
Barcelona, at Naples, the shipwrights were busy 
night and day. The sea was covered with vessels 
freighted with arms and provisions streaming to the 
mouth of the Tacus, Catholic volunteers from all 
nations flocked into the Peninsula, to take a share 
in the mighty movement which was to decide the 
fate of the world, and bishops, priests, and monks 
were set praying through the whole Latin Com- 
munion that Heaven would protect its own cause. 

Meantime the negotiations for peace continued, 
and Elizabeth, strange to say, persisted in listening. 
She would not see what was plain to all the world 
besides. The execution of the Queen of Scots lay 
on her spirit and threw her back into the obstinate 
humour which had made Walsingham so often 
despair of her safety. For two months after that 



Attach on Cadiz 165 

scene at Fotheringay slie liad refused to see Burgli- 
ley, and woiild consult no one but Sir James Crofts 
and lier Spanish-tempered ladies. Slie knew that 
Spain now intended that she should betray the 
towns in the Low Countries, yet she Avas blind to 
the infamy which it would bring upon her. She 
left her troops there without their wages to shiver 
into mutiny. She named commissioners, with Sir 
James Crofts at their head, to go to Ostend and 
treat with Parma, and if she had not resolved on an 
act of treachery she at least played with the temp- 
tation, and persuaded herself that if she chose to 
make over the towns to Philip, she would be only 
restoring them to their lawful owner. ^ 

Burghley and Walsingham, 3'ou can see from their 
letters, believed now that Elizabeth had ruined her- 
self at last. Happily her moods were variable as 
the weather. She was forced to see the condition 
to which she had reduced her affairs in the Low 
Countries by the appearance of a number of starv- 
ing wretches who had deserted from the garrisons 
there and had come across to clamour for their pay 
at her own palace gates. If she had no troops in 
the field but a mutinous and starving rabble, she 
might get no terms at all. It might be well to show 
Philip that on one element at least she could still 
be dangerous. She had lost nothing by the bold 
actions of Drake and the privateers. With half a 
heart she allowed Drake to fit them out again, take 
the Buonaventura, a ship of her own, to carry his 
flag, and go down to the coast of Spain and see 



1G6 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

wliat was going on. He was not to do too much. 
Slie sent a vice-admiral witli liim, in the Lion, to be 
a check on over-audacity. Drake knew how to deal 
with embarrassing vice-admirals. His own adven- 
turers would sail, if he ordered, to the Mountains of 
the Moon, and be quite certain that it was the right 
place to go to. Once mider way and on the blue 
water he would go his own course and run his own 
risks. Cadiz Harbour was thronged with transports, 
provision ships, powder vessels — a hundred sail of 
them — many of a thousand tons and over, loading 
with stores for the Armada. There were thirty sail 
of adventurers, the smartest ships afloat on the 
ocean, and sailed by the smartest seamen that ever 
handled rope or tiller. Something might be done 
at Cadiz if ho did not say too much about it. The 
leave had been given to him to go, but he knew by 
experience, and Burghley again warned him, that 
it might, and probably would, be revoked if he 
waited too long. The moment was his own, and ho 
used it. He was but just in time. Before his sails 
were under the horizon a courier galloped into 
Plymouth with orders that under no condition was he 
to enter port or haven of the King of Spain, or in- 
jure Spanish subjects. What else was he going out 
for ? He had guessed how it would be. Comedy 
or earnest he could not tell. If earnest, some such 
order would be sent after him, and he had not an 
instant to lose. 

He sailed on the morning of the 12th of April. 
Off Ushant he fell in with a north-west gale, and he 



Attack on Cadiz 167 

flew on, spreading every stitch of canvas whicli his 
spars would bear. In five days he was at Cape St. 
Vincent. On the 18th he had the white houses of 
Cadiz right in front of hiin, and could see for him- 
self the forests of masts from the ships and trans- 
ports with which the harbour was choked. Here 
was a chance for a piece of service if there was 
courage for the venture. He signalled for his officers 
to come on board the Buonaventura. There before 
their eyes was, if not the Armada itself, the ma- 
terials which were to fit the Armada for the seas. 
Did they dare to go in with him and destroy them ? 
There were batteries at the harbour mouth, but 
Drake's mariners had faced Spanish batteries at St. 
Domingo and Carthagena and had not found them 
very formidable. Go in ? Of course they would. 
"Where Drake would lead the corsairs of Plymouth 
were never afraid to follow. The vice-admiral 
pleaded danger to her Majesty's ships. It was not 
the business of an English fleet to be particular 
about danger. Straight in they went with a fair 
wind and a flood tide, ran past the batteries and 
under a storm of shot, to which they did not trouble 
themselves to wait to reply. The poor vice-admiral 
followed reluctantly in the Lion. A single shot hit 
the Lion, and he edged away out of range, anchored, 
and drifted to sea again with the ebb. But Drake 
and all the rest dashed on, sank the guardship — 
a large galleon — and sent flying a fleet of galleys 
which ventured too near them and were never seen 
again. 



1C8 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Further resistance there was none — absolutely 
none. The crews of the store ships escaped in their 
boats to land. The governor of Cadiz, the same 
Duke of Medina Sidonia who the next year was to 
gain a disastrous immortality, fled ' like a tall gen- 
tleman' to raise troops and prevent Drake from 
landing. Drake had no intention of landing. At 
his extreme leisure he took possession of the Span- 
ish shipping, searched every vessel, and carried off 
everything that he could use. He detained as pris- 
oners the few men that he found on board, and 
then, after doing his work deliberately and com- 
pletely, he set the hulls on fire, cut the cables, and 
left them to drive on the rising tide under the walls 
of the towTi — a confused mass of blazing ruin. On 
the 12th of April he had sailed from Plymouth ; on 
the 19th he entered Cadiz harbour ; on the 1st of 
May he passed out again without the loss of a boat 
or a man. He said in jest that he had singed the 
King of Spain's beard for him. In sober prose he 
had done the King of Spain an amount of damage 
which a million ducats and a year's labour would 
imperfectly replace. The daring rapidity of the 
enterprise astonished Spain, and astonished Europe 
more than the storm of the West Indian towns. 
The English had long teeth, as Santa Cruz had 
told Philip's council, and the teeth would need 
drawing before Mass would be heard again at 
Westminster. The Spaniards were a gallant race, 
and a dashing exploit, though at their own expense, 
could be admired by the countrymen of Cervantes. 



Attack on Cadiz 169 

' So praised,' we read, ' was Drake for liis valour 
among them that tliey said if he was not a Lutheran 
there would not be the like of hirn in the world.' 
A Court lady was invited by the King to join a 
party on a lake near Madrid. The lady replied that 
she dared not trust herself on the water with his 
Majesty lest Sir Francis Drake should have her. 

Drake might well be praised. But Drake would 
have been the first to divide the honour with the 
comrades who were his arm and hand. Great ad- 
mirals and generals do not win their battles single- 
handed like the heroes of romance. Orders avail 
only when there are men to execute them. Not a 
captain, not an officer who served under Drake, 
ever flinched or blundered. Never was such a 
school for seamen as that twenty years' privateer- 
ing war between the servants of the Pope and the 
West-country Protestant adventurers. Those too 
must be remembered who built and rigged the ships 
in which they sailed and fought their battles. We 
may depend upon it that there was no dishonesty 
in contractors, no scamping of the work in the yards 
where the Plymouth rovers were fitted out for sea. 
Their hearts were in it ; they were soldiers of a 
common cause. 

Three weeks had sufficed for Cadiz. No order 
for recall had yet arrived, Drake had other plans 
before him, and the men were in high spirits and 
ready for anything. K fleet of Spanish men-of-war 
was expected round from the Mediterranean. He 
proposed to stay for a week or two in the neigh- 



170 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

bourliood of tlie Straits, in the liope of falling in 
with them. He wanted fresh water, too, and had 
to find it somewhere. 

Before leaving Cadiz Roads he had to decide 
what to do with his prisoners. Many English w^ere 
known to be in the hands of the Holy Office work- 
ing in irons as g;dley slaves. He sent in a pinnace 
to propose an exchange, and had to wait some days 
for an answer. At length, after a reference to Lis- 
bon, the Spanish authorities replied that they had 
no English prisoners. If this was true those they 
had must have died of barbarous usage ; and after 
a consultation with his officers Sir Francis sent in 
word that for the future such prisoners as they 
might take would be sold to the Moors, and the 
money applied to the redemption of English cap- 
tives in other parts of the world. 

Water was the nest point. There were springs 
at Faro, with a Spanish force stationed there to 
guard them. Force or no force, water was to be 
had. The boats were sent on shore. The boats' 
crews stormed the forts and filled the casks. The 
vice-admiral again lifted up his A^oice. The Queen 
had ordered that there was to be no landing on 
Spanish soil. At Cadiz the order had been ob- 
served. There had been no need to land. Here at 
Faro there had been direct defiance of her Majesty's 
command. He became so loud in his clamours that 
Drake found it necessary to lock him up in his own 
cabin, and at length to send him home with his ship 
to complain. For himself, as the expected fleet 



Attack on Cadiz 171 

from the Straits did not appear, and as lie liad 
shaken off his troublesome second in command, he 
proceeded leisurely ujd the coast, intending to look 
in at Lisbon and see for himself how things were 
going on there. All along as he went he fell in 
with traders loaded with supplies for the use of the 
Armada. All these he destroyed as he advanced, 
and at length found himself under the purple hills 
of Cintra and looking up into the Tagus. There 
lay gathered together the strength of the fighting 
naval force of Spain — fifty great galleons, already 
arrived, the largest warships which then floated on 
the ocean. Santa Cruz, the best officer in the 
Spanish navy, was himself in the town and in com- 
mand. To venture a repetition of the Cadiz exploit 
in the face of such odds seemed too desperate even 
for Drake, but it was one of those occasions wdien 
the genius of a great commander sees more than 
ordinary eyes. He calculated, and, as was proved 
afterwards, calculated rightly, that the galleons 
would be half manned, or not manned at all, and 
crowded with landsmen bringing on board the 
stores. Their sides as they lay would be choked 
with hulks and lighters. They would be unable to 
get their anchors up, set their canvas, or stir from 
their moorings. Daring as Drake was known to 
be, no one would expect him to go with so small a 
force into the enemy's stronghold, and there would 
be no preparations to meet him. ' He could count 
upon the tides. The winds at that season of the 
year were fresh and steady, and could be counted 



172 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

on also to take liim in or out ; there was sea room 
in tlie river for such vessels as the adventurers' to 
manoeuvre and to retreat if overmatched. Rash as 
such an enterprise might seem to an unprofessional 
eye, Drake certainly thought of it, perhaps had 
meant to try it in some form or other and so make 
an end of the Spanish invasion of England. He 
could not venture without asking first for his mis- 
tress's permission. He knew her nature. He knew 
that his services at Cadiz would outweigh his dis- 
regard of her orders, and that so far he had nothing 
to fear ; but he knew also that she was still hanker- 
ing after peace, and that without her leave he must 
do nothing to make peace impossible. There is a 
letter from him to the Queen, written when he was 
lying off Lisbon, very characteristic of the time and 
the man. 

Nelson or Lord St. Vincent did not talk much of 
expecting supernatural assistance. If they had we 
should suspect them of using language conventionally 
which they would have done better to leave alone. 
Sir Francis Drake, like his other great contem- 
poraries, believed that he was engaged in a holy 
cause, and was not afraid or ashamed to say so. 
His object was to protest agamst a recall in the 
flow of victory. The Spaniards, he said, were but 
mortal men. They were enemies of the Truth, up- 
holders of Dagon's image, which had fallen in other 
days before the Ark, and would fall again if boldly 
defied. So long as he had ships that would float, 
and there was food on board them for the men to 



Attach on Cadiz 173 

eat, he entreated her to let hmi stay and strike when- 
ever a chance was oflfered him. The continuing to 
the end yielded the true glory. When men were 
serving religion and their country, a merciful God, 
it was likely, would give them victory, and Satan 
and his angels should not prevail. 

All in good time. Another year and Drake 
would have the chance he wanted. For the mo- 
ment Satan had prevailed — Satan in the shape of 
Elizabeth's Catholic advisers. Her answer came. 
It was warm and generous. She did not, could 
not, blame him for what he had done so far, but 
she desired him to provoke the King of Spain no 
further. The negotiations for peace had opened, 
and must not be interfered with. 

This prohibition from the Queen prevented, per- 
haps, what would have been the most remarkable 
exploit in English naval history. As matters stood 
it would have been perfectly possible for Drake to 
have gone into the Tagus, and if he could not have 
burnt the galleons he could certainly have come 
away unhurt. He had guessed their condition 
with entire correctness. The ships were there, but 
the ships' companies were not on board them. 
Santa Cruz himself admitted that if Drake had 
gone iu he could have himself done nothing ' por 
falta de gente ' (for want of men). And Drake 
undoubtedly would have gone, and would have 
done something with which all the world would 
have rung, but for the positive command of his 
mistress. He lingered in the roads at Cintra, hop- 



174 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

ing that Santa Cruz would come out and meet him. 
All Spain was clamouring at Santa Cruz's inaction. 
Philip wrote to stir the old admiral to energy. He 
must not allow himself to be defied by a squadron 
of insolent rovers. He must chase them off the 
coast or destroy them. Santa Cruz needed no 
stirring. Santa Cniz, the hero of a hmidred fights, 
was chafing at his own impotence ; but he was 
obliged to tell his master that if he wished to have 
service out of his galleons he must provide crews 
to handle them, and they must rot at their anchors 
till he did. He told him, moreover, that it was 
time for him to exert himself in earnest. If he 
waited much longer, England would have grown too 
strong for him to deal with. 

In strict obedience Drake ought now to have 
gone home, but the campaign had brought so far 
more glory than prize money. His comrades re- 
quired some consolation for their disappointment 
at Lisbon. The theory of these armaments of the 
adventurers was that the cost should be paid some- 
how by the enemy, and he could be assured that if 
he brought back a prize or two in which she could 
claim a share the Queen w^ould not call him to a 
very strict account. Homeward-bound galleons or 
merchantmen were to be met with occasionally at 
the Azores. On leaving Lisbon Drake headed 
away to St. Michael's, and his lucky star was still 
in the ascendant. 

As if sent on purpose for him, the San Philip, a 
magnificent caraque from the Indies, fell straight 



Attack on Cadiz 175 

into his hands, ' so richly loaded,' it was said, ' that 
every man in the fleet counted his fortune made.' 
There was no need to wait for more.' It was but 
two months since Drake had sailed from Plymouth. 
He could now go home after a cruise of which the 
history of his own or any other country had never 
presented the like. He had struck the King of 
Spain in his own stronghold. He had disabled the 
intended Armada for one season at least. He had 
picked up a prize by the way and as if by accident, 
worth half a million, to pay his expenses, so that he 
had cost nothing to his mistress, and had brought 
back a handsome present for her. I doubt if such 
a naval estimate was ever presented to an English 
House of Commons. Above all he had taught the 
self-confident Spaniard to be afraid of him, and he 
carried back his jDOor comrades in such a glow of 
triumph that they would have fought Satan and all 
his angels with Drake at their head. 

Our West-country annals still tell how the coun- 
try people streamed down in their best clothes to 
see the great San Philip towed into Dartmouth 
Harbour. English Protestantism was no bad cable 
for the nation to ride by in those stormy times, and 
deserves to be honourably remembered in a School 
of History at an English University. 



LECTUEE VIII 

SAILING OF THE ARMADA 

Peace or war between Spain and England, that 
was now the question, with a prospect of securing 
the English succession for himself or one of his 
daughters. With the whole Spanish nation smart- 
ing under the indignity of the burning of the ships 
at Cadiz, Philip's warlike ardour had warmed into 
something like fire. He had resolved at any rate, 
if he was to forgive his sister-in-law at all, to insist 
on more than toleration for the Catholics in Eng- 
land. He did not contemplate as even possible 
that the English privateers, however bold or dex- 
terous, could resist such an armament as he was 
preparing to lead to the Channel. The Eoyal 
Navy, he knew very well, did not exceed twenty- 
five ships of all sorts and sizes. The adventurers 
might be equal to sudden daring actions, but vrould 
and must be crushed by such a fleet as was being 
fitted out at Lisbon. He therefore, for himself, 
meant to demand that the Catholic religion should 
be restored to its complete and exclusive supe- 
riority, and certain towns in England were to be 
made over to be garrisoned by Spanish troops as 
securities for Elizabeth's good behaviour. As often 



Sailing of the Armada 177 

happens with irresolute men, when they have once 
been forced to a decision they are as too hasty as 
before they w^ere too slow. Alter Drake had re- 
tired from Lisbon the King of Spain sent orders to 
the Prince of Parma not to wait for the arrival of 
the Armada, but to cross the Channel immediately 
with the Flanders army, and bring Elizabeth to her 
knees. Parma had more sense than his master. 
He represented that he could not cross without a 
fleet to cover his passage. His transport barges 
would only float in smooth water, and whether the 
water was smooth or rough they could be sent to 
the bottom by half a dozen English cruisers from 
the Thames. Supposing him to have landed, either 
in Thanet or other spot, he reminded Philip that 
he could not have at most more than 25,000 men 
with him. The English militia were in training. 
The Jesuits said they were disaffected, but the Jes- 
uits might be making a mistake. He might have 
to fight more than one battle. He would have to 
leave detachments as he advanced to London, to 
cover his communications, and a reverse would be 
fatal. He would obey if his Majesty persisted, but 
he recommended Philip to continue to amuse the 
English with the treaty till the Armada was ready, 
and, in evident consciousness that the enterprise 
would be harder than PhiHp imagined, he even 
gave it as his own opinion still (notwithstanding 
Cadiz), that if Elizabeth would surrender the cau- 
tionary towns in Flanders to Spain, and would 
grant the English Catholics a fair degree of liberty, 
12 



178 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Oentury 

it Avoiild be Philip's interest to make peace at once 
without stipulating for further terms. He could 
make a new war if he wished at a future time, when 
circumstances might be more convenient and the 
Netherlands revolt subdued. 

To such conditions as these it seemed that Eliz- 
abeth was inclining to consent. The towns had 
been trusted to her keeping by the Netherlanders. 
To give them up to the enemy to make better con- 
ditions for herself would be an infamy so great as to 
have disgraced Elizabeth for ever; yet she would 
not see it. She said the towns belonged to Philip 
and she would only be restoring his own to him. 
Burghley bade her, if she wanted peace, send back 
Drake to the Azores and frighten Philip for his gold 
ships. She was in one of her ungovernable moods. 
Instead of sending out Drake again she ordered her 
own fleet to be dismantled and laid up at Chatham, 
and she condescended to apologise to Parma for the 
burning of the transports at Cadiz as done against 
her orders. 

This was in December 1587, only five months 
before the Armada sailed from Lisbon. Never had 
she brought herself and her country so near ruin. 
The entire safety of England rested at that moment 
on the adventurers, and on the adventurers alone. 

Meanwhile, with enormous effort the destruction 
at Cadiz had been repaired. The great fleet was 
pushed on, and in February Santa Cruz reported 
himself almost ready. Santa Cruz and Philip, how- 
ever, were not in agreement as to what should be 



Sailing of the Armada 179 

done. Santa Ciaiz was a fighting admiral, Philip 
was not a fighting king. He changed his mind as 
often as Elizabeth. Hot fits varied with cold. His 
last news from England led him to hope that fight- 
ing would not be wanted. The Commissioners were 
sitting at Ostend. On one side there were the 
formal negotiations, in which the surrender of the 
towns was not yet treated as an open question. 
Had the States been aware that Elizabeth was even 
in thought entertaining it, they would have made 
terms instantly on their own account and left her 
alone in the cold. Besides this, there was a second 
negotiation underneath, carried on by private agents, 
in which the surrender was to be the special condi- 
tion. These complicated schemings Parma pur- 
posely protracted, to keep Elizabeth in false secui'ity. 
She had not deliberately intended to give up the 
towns. At the last moment she would have proba- 
bly refused, unless the States themselves consented 
to it as part of a general settlement. But she was 
playing with the idea. The States, she thought, 
were too obstinate. Peace would be good for them, 
and she said she might do them good if she pleased, 
whether they liked it or not. 

Parma was content that she should amuse her- 
self with words and neglect her defences by sea 
and land. By the end of February Santa Cruz was 
ready. A northerly wind blows strong down the 
coast of Portugal in the spring months, and he 
meant to be off before it set in, before the end of 
March at latest. Unfortunately for Spain, Santa 



ISO English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Cruz fell ill at the last moment — ill, it was said, 
with anxiety. Santa Cruz knew well enough what 
Philip would not know — that the expedition would 
be no holiday parade. He had reason enough to 
be anxious if Philip was to accompany him and tie 
his hands and embarrass him. Any way, Santa 
Cruz died after a few days' illness. The sailing 
had to be suspended till a new commander could 
be decided on, and in the choice which Philip made 
he gave a curious proof of what he intended the ex- 
pedition to do. He did not really expect or wish 
for any serious fighting. He wanted to be sovereign 
of England again, with the assent of the English 
Catholics. He did not mean, if he could help it, to 
irritate the national pride by force and conquest. 
While Santa Cruz lived, Spanish public opinion 
would not allow him to be passed over. Santa 
Cruz must command, and Philip had resolved to go 
with him, to prevent too violent proceedings. Santa 
Cruz dead, he could find someone who would do 
what he was told, and his own presence would no 
longer be necessary. 

The Duke of Medina Sidonia, named El Bueno, 
or the Good, was a grandee of highest rank. He 
was enormously rich, fond of hunting and shooting, 
a tolerable rider, for the rest a harmless creature 
getting on to forty, conscious of his defects, but not 
aware that so great a prince had any need to mend 
them ; without vanity, without ambition, and most 
happy when lounging in his orange gardens at San 
Lucan. Of active service he had seen none. He 



Sailing of the Armada 181 

was Captain-General of Andalusia, and had run 
away from Cadiz when Drake came into the har- 
bour ; but that was all. To his astonishment and to 
his dismay, he learnt that it was on him that the choice 
had fallen to be the Lord High Admiral of Spain 
and commander of the so much talked of expedition 
to England. He protested his unfitness. He said 
that he was no seaman ; that he knew nothing of 
fighting by sea or land ; that if he ventured out in a 
boat he was always sick ; that he had never seen the 
English Channel ; and that, as to politics, he neither 
knew anything nor cared anything about them. In 
short, he had not one qualification which such a 
post required. 

Philip liked his modesty ; but in fact the Duke's 
defects were his recommendations. He would obey 
his instructions, would not fight unless it was neces- 
sary, and would go into no rash adventures. All 
that Philip wanted him to do was to find the Prince 
of Parma, and act as Parma should bid him. As to 
seamanship, he would have the best officers in the 
navy under him ; and for a second in command he 
should have Don Diego de Valdez, a cautious, 
silent, sullen old sailor, a man after Philip's own 
heart. 

Doubting, hesitating, the Duke repaired to Lis- 
bon. There he v^as put in better heart by a nun, 
who said Our Lady had sent her to promise him 
success. Every part of the service .was new to him. 
He was a fussy, anxious little man ; set himself 
to inquire into everything, to meddle with things 



182 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

which he could not understand and had better have 
left alone. He ought to have left details to the 
responsible heads of departments. He fancied that 
in a week or two he could look himself into ever}^- 
thing. There were 130 ships, 8,000 seamen, 19,000 
Spanish infantry, with gentlemen volunteers, officers, 
priests, surgeons, galley slaves — at least 3,000 more 
— provisioned for six months. Then there were the 
ships' stores, arms small and great, powder, spars, 
cordage, canvas, and such other million necessities 
as ships on service need. The whole of this the 
poor Duke took on himself to examine into, and, 
as he could not understand what he saw, and knew 
not what to look at, nothing was examined into at 
all. Everyone's mind was, in fact, so much ab- 
sorbed by the spiritual side of the thing that they 
could not attend to vulgar commonplaces. Don 
Quixote, wdien he set out on his expedition, and 
forgot money and a change of linen, was not in a 
state of wilder exaltation than Catholic Europe at 
the sailing of the Armada. Every noble family in 
Spain had sent one or other of its sons to fight for 
Christ and Our Lady. 

For three years the stream of prayer had been 
ascending from church, cathedral, or oratory. The 
King had emptied his treasury. The hidalgo and 
the tradesman had offered their contributions. The 
crusade against the Crescent itself had not kindled 
a more intense or more sacred enthusiasm. All 
pains were taken to make the expedition spiritually 
worthy of its purpose. No impure thing, specially 



Sailing of the Armada 183 

no impure woman, was to approach tlie yards or 
ships. Swearing, quarrelling, gambling, were pro- 
hibited under terrible penalties. The galleons were 
named after the apostles and saints to whose charge 
they were committed, and every seaman and soldier 
confessed and communicated on going on board. 
The shipboys at sunrise were to sing their Buenos 
Dias at the foot of the mainmast, and their Ave 
Maria as the sun sank into the ocean. On the 
Imperial banner were embroidered the figures of 
Christ and His Mother, and as a motto the haughty 
' Plus Ultra ' of Charles V. was replaced with the 
more pious aspiration, 'Exsurge, Deus, et vindica 
causam tuam.' 

Nothing could be better if the more vulgar neces- 
sities had been looked to equally well. Unluckily, 
Medina Sidonia had taken the inspection of these 
on himself, and Medina Sidonia was unable to cor- 
rect the information which any rascal chose to give 
him. 

At length, at the end of April, he reported him- 
self satisfied. The banner was blessed in the cathe- 
dral, men and stores all on board, and the Invincible 
Armada prepared to go upon its way. No wonder 
Philip was confident. A hundred and thirty gal- 
leons, from 1,300 to 700 tons, 30,000 fighting men, 
besides slaves and servants, made up a force which 
the world might well think invincible. The guns 
were the weakest part. There were twice as many 
as the English; but they were for the most part 
nine and six pounders, and with but fifty rounds to 



184 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

each. The Spaniards had done their sea fighting 
hitherto at close range, grappling and trusting to 
musketry. They were to receive a lesson about 
this before the summer was over. But Philip him- 
self meanwhile expected evidently that he would 
meet with no opposition. Of priests he had pro- 
vided 180 ; of surgeons and surgeons' assistants 
eighty-five only for the whole fleet. 

In the middle of May he sent down his last 
orders. The Duke was not to seek a battle. If he 
fell in with Drake he was to take no notice of him, 
but thank God, as Dogberry said to the watchman, 
that he was rid of a knave. He was to go straight 
to the North Foreland, there anchor and communi- 
cate with Parma. The experienced admirals who 
had learnt their trade under Santa Cruz — Martinez 
de Recalde, Pedro de Valdez, Miguel de Oquendo 
— strongly urged the securing Plymouth or the Isle 
of Wight on their way up Channel. This had evi- 
dently been Santa Cruz's own design, and the only 
rational one to have followed. Philip did not see it. 
He did not believe it would prove necessary ; but as 
to this and as to fighting he left them, as he knew 
he must do, a certain discretion. 

The Duke, then, flying the sacred banner on 
the San Martin, dropped down the Tagus on the 
14th of May, followed by the whole fleet. The San 
3Iartin had been double-timbered with oak, to keep 
the shot out. He liked his business no better. In 
vain he repeated to himself that it was God's cause. 
God would see they came to no harm. He was no 



Sailing of the Armada 185 

sooner in the open sea than he found no cause, how- 
ever holy, saved men from the consequences of their 
own blunders. They were late out, and met the 
north trade wind, as Santa Cruz had foretold. 

They drifted to leeward day by day till they had 
dropped down to Cape St. Vincent. Infinite pains 
had been taken with the spiritual state of every one 
on board. The carelessness or roguery of contrac- 
tors and purveyors had not been thought of. The 
water had been taken in three mouths before. It 
was fouud foul and stinking. The salt beef, the 
salt pork, and fish were putrid, the bread full of 
maggots and cockroaches. Cask was opened after 
cask. It was the same story everywhere. They 
had to be all thrown overboard. In the whole fleet 
there was not a sound morsel of food but biscuit 
and dried fruit. The men went down in hundreds 
with dysentery. The Duke bewailed his fate as 
innocently as Sancho Panza. He hoped God would 
help. He had wished no harm to anybody. He 
had left his home and his family to please the King, 
and he trusted the King would remember it. He 
wrote piteously for fresh stores, if the King would 
not have them all perish. Tlie admirals said they 
could go no further without fresh water. All w^as 
dismay and confusion. The wind at last fell round 
south, and they made Finisterre. It then came on 
to blow, and they were scattered. The Duke with 
half the fleet crawled into Corunna, the crews scarce 
able to man the yards and trying to desert in shoals. 

The missing ships dropped in one by one, but a 



186 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

week passed aud a third of them were still absent. 
Another despairing letter went off from the Duke to 
his master. He said that he concluded from their 
misfortmies that God disapproved of the expedition, 
and that it had better be abandoned. Diego Florez 
was of the same opinion. The stores were worth- 
less, he said. The men were sick and out of heart. 
Nothing could be done that season. 

It was not by flinching at the first sight of dif- 
fi.culty that the Spaniards had become masters of 
half the world. The old comrades of Santa Cruz 
saw nothing in what had befallen them beyond a 
common accident of sea life. To abandon at the first 
check an enterprise undertaken with so much pre- 
tence, they said, would be cowardly and dishonour- 
able. Ships were not lost because they w^ere out of 
sight. Fresh meat and bread could be taken on 
board from Corunna. They could set up a shore hos- 
pital for the sick. The sickness was not dangerous. 
There had been no deaths. A little energy and ail 
would be well again. Pedro de Valdez despatched 
a courier to Philip to entreat him not to listen to 
the Duke's croakings. Philip sent a speedy answer 
telling the Duke not to be frightened at shadows. 

There was nothing, in fact, really to be alarmed 
at. Fresh water took away the dysentery. Fresh 
food was In'ought in from the country. Galiciau 
seamen filled the gaps made by the deserters. The 
ships were laid on shore and scraped and tallowed. 
Tents were pitched on an island in the harbour, 
with altars and priests, and everyone confessed 



Sailing of the Armada 187 

again and received the Sacrament. 'This,' wrote 
the Duke, ' is great riches and a precious jewel, 
and all now are well content and cheerful.' The 
scattered flock had reassembled. Damages were all 
repaired, and the only harm had been loss of time. 
Once more, on the 23rd of July, the Ai-mada in full 
numbers was under way for England and streaming 
across the Bay of Biscay with a fair wind for the 
mouth of the Channel. 

Leaving the Duke for the moment, we must 
now glance at the preparations made in England to 
receive him. It miajht almost be said that there were 
none at all. The winter months had been wild and 
changeable, but not so wild and not so fluctuating 
as the mind of England's mistress. In December 
her fleet had been paid off at Chatham. The dan- 
ger of leaving the country without any regular de- 
fence was pressed on her so vehemently that she 
consented to allow part of the ships to be recom- 
missioned. The Revenge was given to Drake. He 
and Howard, the Lord Admiral, were to have gone 
with a mixed squadron from the Royal Navy and 
the adventurers down to the Spanish coast. In every 
loyal subject there had long been but one opinion, 
that a good open war was the only road to an hon- 
ourable peace. The open Avar, they now trusted, 
was come at last. But the hope was raised only to 
be disappointed. With the news of Santa Cruz's 
death came a report which Elizabeth greedily be- 
lieved, that the Armada was dissolving and was not 
coming at all. Sir James Crofts sang the usual 



188 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

song that Drake aucl Howard wanted war, because 
war was their trade. She recalled her orders. She 
said that she was assured of peace in six weeks, and 
that beyond that time the services of the fleet would 
not be required. Half the men engaged were to be dis- 
missed at once to save their pay. Drake and Lord 
Henry Seymour might cruise with four or five of 
the Queen's ships between Plymouth and the So- 
lent. Lord Howard was to remain in the Thames 
with the rest. I know not whether swearing was 
interdicted in the English navy as well as in the 
Spanish, but I will answer for it that Howard did 
not spare his language when this missive reached 
him. ' Never,' he said, ' since England was England 
Avas such a stratagem made to deceive us as this 
treaty. We have not hands left to carry the ships 
back to Chatham. We are like bears tied to a 
stake ; the Spaniards may come to worry us like 
dogs, and we cannot hurt them.' 

It was well for England that she had other de- 
fenders than the wildly managed navy of the Queen. 
Historians tell us how the gentlemen of the coast 
came out in their own vessels to meet the invaders. 
Come they did, but who were they? Ships that 
could fight the Spanish galleons were not made in 
a day or a week. They were built already. They 
were manned by loyal subjects, the business of 
whose lives had been to meet the enemies of their 
land and faith on the wide ocean— not by those who 
had been watching with divided hearts for a Catho- 
lic revolution. 



Sailing of the Armada 189 

March went by, and sure intelligence came that 
the Armada was not dissolving. . Again Drake 
prayed the Queen to let him take the Revenge and 
the Western adventurers down to Lisbon ; but the 
commissioners wrote full of hope from Ostend, and 
Elizabeth was afraid 'the King of Spain might take 
it ill.' She found fault with Drake's exjDenses. She 
charged him with wasting her ammunition in target 
practice. She had it doled out to him in driblets, 
and allowed no more than would serve for a day 
and a half's service. She kept a sharp hand on the 
victualling houses. April went, and her four finest 
ships — the Triumph, the Vidorij, the Elizabeth 
Jonas, and the Bear — were still with sails unbent, 
'keeping Chatham church.' She said they would 
not be wanted and it would be waste of money to 
refit them. Again she was forced to yield at last, 
and the four ships were got to sea in time, the 
workmen in the yards making up for the delay ; but 
she had few enough when her whole fleet was out 
upon the Channel, and but for the privateers there 
would have been an ill reckoning when the trial 
came. The Armada was coming now. There was 
no longer a doubt of it. Lord Henry Seymour was 
left mth five Queen's ships and thirty London ad- 
venturers to watch Parma and the Narrow Seas. 
Howard, carrying his own flag in the ArJc Raleigh, 
joined Drake at Plymouth with seventeen others. 

Still the numbing hand of his mistress pursued 
him. Food supplies had been issued to the middle 
of June, and no more was to be allowed. The 



190 English Seamen in iJie Sixteenth Century 

weather was desperate — wildest summer ever known. 
The south-west gales brought the Atlantic rollers 
into the Sound. Drake lay inside, perhaps behind 
the island which bears his name. Howard rode out 
the gales under Mount Edgecumbe, the days going 
by and the provisions wasting. The rations were 
cut down to make the stores last longer. Owing to 
the many changes the crews had been hastily raised. 
They were ill-clothed, ill-provided every way, but 
they complained of nothing, caught fish to mend 
their mess dinners, and prayed only for the speedy 
coming of the enemy. Even Howard's heart failed 
him now. English sailors would do what could be 
done by man, but they could not fight with famine. 
'Awake, Madam,' he wrote to the Queen, 'awake, 
for the love of Christ, and see the villainous treasons 
round about you.' He goaded her into ordering 
supplies for one more month, but this was to be 
positively the last. The victuallers inquired if they 
should make further preparations. She answered 
peremptorily, 'No;' and again the weeks ran on. 
The contractors, it seemed, had caught her spirit, 
for the beer which had been furnished for the fleet 
turned som-, and those who drank it sickened. The 
ofiicers, on their own responsibility, ordered wine 
and arrowroot for the sick out of Plymouth, to be 
called to a sharp account when all was over. Again 
the rations were reduced. Four weeks' allowance 
was stretched to serve for six, and still the Spaniards 
did not come. So England's forlorn hope was 
treated at the crisis of her destiny. The prepara- 



Sailing of the Armada 191 

tions on land were scarcely better. The militia had 
been called out. A hiindi-ed thousand men had 
given their names, and the stations had been ar- 
ranged where they were to assemble if the enemy 
attempted a landing. But there were no reserves, 
no magazines of arms, no stores or tents, no requis- 
ites for an army save the men themselves and what 
local resources could fui'nish. For a general the 
Queen had chosen the Earl of Leicester, who might 
have the merit of fidelity to herself, but otherwise 
was the worst fitted that she could have found in 
her whole dominions ; and the Prince of Parma was 
coming, if he came at all, at the head of the best- 
provided and best - disciplined troops in Europe. 
The hope of England at that moment was in her pa- 
tient suffering sailors at Plymouth. Each morning 
they looked out passionately for the Spanish sails. 
Time was a worse enemy than the galleons. The 
six weeks would be soon gone, and the Queen's 
ships must then leave the seas if the crews were 
not to starve. Drake had certain news that the 
Armada had sailed. AATiere was it? Once he dashed 
out as far as Ushant, but turned back, lest it should 
pass him in the night and find Plymouth unde- 
fended; and smaller grew the messes and leaner and 
paler the seamen's faces. Still not a man murmured 
or gave in. They had no leisure to be sick. 

The last week of July had now come. There 
were half-rations for one week more, and powder for 
two days' fighting. That was all. On so light a 
thread such mighty issues were now depending. On 



192 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Friday, the 23rd, tlie Armada had started for the 
second time, the numbers undiminished; religious 
fervour burning again, and heart and hope high as 
ever. Saturday, Simday, and Monday they sailed 
on with a smooth sea and soft south winds, and on 
Monday night the Duke found himself at the Chan- 
nel moutli with all his flock about him, Tuesday 
morning the wind shifted to the north, then backed 
to the Tv^est, and blew hard. The sea got up, broke 
into the stern galleries of the galleons, and sent the 
galleys looking for shelter in French harbours. The 
fleet hove to for a couple of days, till the weather 
mended. On Friday afternoon they sighted the 
Lizard and formed into fighting order ; the Duke in 
the centre, Alonzo de Leyva leading in a vessel of 
his own called the Rata Coronada, Don Martin de 
Eecalde covering the rear. The entire line stretched 
to about seven miles. 

The sacred banner was run np to the masthead of 
the San Martin. Each ship saluted with all her 
guns, and every man — officer, noble, seaman, or 
slave — knelt on the decks at a given signal to com- 
mend themselves to Mary and her Son. We shall 
miss the meaning of this high epic story if we do 
not realise that/ both sides had the most profound 
conviction that they were fighting the battle of the 
Almighty. Two principles, freedom and authority, 
were contending for the guidance of mankind. In 
the evening the Duke sent off two fast fly-boats to 
Parma to announce his arrival in the Channel, with 
another reporting progress to Philip, and saying that 



Sailing of the Armada 193 

till he heard from the Prince he meant to stop at 
the Isle of Wight. It is commonly said that his 
officers advised him to go in and take Plymouth. 
There is no evidence for this. The island would 
have been a far more useful position for them. 

At dark that Friday night the beacons vi^ere seen 
blazing all up the coast and inland on the tops of 
the hills. They crept on slowly through Saturday, 
with reduced canvas, feeling their way — not a sail 
to be seen. At midnight a pinnace brought in a 
fishing boat, from which they learnt that on the 
sight of the signal fires the English had come out 
that morning from Plymouth. Presently, when the 
moon rose, they saw sails passing between them and 
the land. With daybreak the whole scene became 
visible, and the curtain lifted on the first act of the 
drama. The Armada was betAveen Rame Head and 
the Eddystone, or a little to the west of it. Ply- 
mouth Sound was right open to their left. The 
breeze, which had dropped in the night, was fresh- 
ening from the south-west, and right ahead of them, 
outside the Mew Stone, were eleven ships manoeu- 
vring to recover the wind. Towards the land were 
some forty others, of various sizes, and this formed, 
as far as they could see, the v/hole English force. 
In numbers the Spaniards were nearly three to one. 
In the size of the ships there was no comparison. 
With these advantages the Duke decided to engage, 
and a signal was made to hold the wind and keep 
the enemy apart. The eleven ships ahead were 
Howard's squadron ; those inside were Drake and 
13 



194 English Seamen in tJie Sixteenth Century 

tlie adventurers. With some surprise tlie Spanish 
officers saw Howard reach easily to windward out 
of range and join Drake. The whole English fleet 
then passed out close-hauled in line behind them 
and swept along their rear, using guns more power- 
ful than theirs and pouring in broadsides from safe 
distance with deadly effect. Eecalde, with Alonzo 
de Leyva and Oquendo, who came to his help, tried 
desperately to close ; but they could make nothing 
of it. They were out-sailed and out-cannoned. 
The English fired five shots to one of theirs, and 
the effect was the more destructive because, as with 
Rodney's action at Dominica, the galleons were 
crowded with troops, and shot and splinters told 
terribly among them. 

The experience was new and not agreeable. 
Eecalde's division was badly cut iip, and a Spaniard 
present observes that certain officers showed cow- 
ardice — a hit at the Duke, who had kept out of fire. 
The action lasted till four in the afternoon. The 
wind was then freshening fast and the sea rising. 
Both fleets had by this time passed the Sound, and 
the Duke, seeing that nothing could be done, sig- 
nalled to bear away up Channel, the English fol- 
lowing two miles astern. Eecalde's own ship had 
been an especial sufferer. She Avas observed to be 
leaking badly, to drop behind, and to be in danger 
of capture. Pedro de Valdez wore round to help 
him in the Capitana, of the Andalusian squadron, 
fouled the Santa Catalina in turning, broke his bow- 
sprit and foretopmast, and became unmanageable. 



Sailing of the Armada 195 

The Andalusian Capitana was one of the finest ships 
in the Spanish fleet, and Don Pedro one of the 
ablest and most popular commanders. She had 
500 men on board, a large sum of money, and, 
among other treasures, a box of jewel-hilted swords, 
which Phihp was sending over to the English Cath- 
olic peers. But it was growing dark. Sea and sky 
looked ugly. The Duke was flurried, and signalled 
to go on and leave Don Pedro to his fate. Alonzo 
de Leyva and Oquendo rushed on board the San 
Martin to protest. It was no use. Diego Plorez 
said he could not risk the safety of the fleet for a 
single oflicer. The deserted Capitana made a brave 
defence, but could not save herself, and fell, with 
the jewelled swords, 50,000 ducats, and a welcome 
supply of powder, into Drake's hands. 

Off the Start there was a fresh disaster. Every 
one was in ill-humour. A quarrel broke out between 
the soldiers and seamen in Oquendo's galleon. He 
was himself still absent. Some wretch or other 
flung a torch into the powder magazine and jumped 
overboard. The deck was blown off, and 200 men 
along with it. 

Two such accidents following an unsuccessful en- 
gagement did not tend to reconcile the Spaniards 
to the Duke's command. Pedro de Valdez was 
universally loved and honoured, and his desertion 
in the face of an enemy so inferior in numbers 
was regarded as scandalous poltroonery. Monday 
morning broke heavily. The wind was gone, but 
there was still a considerable swell. The Enolish 



196 Englisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

were liuU clown beliind. The day was spent in 
repairing damages and nailing lead over tlie sliot- 
lioles. Recalde was moved to tlie front, to be out 
of harm's way, and De Leyva took his post in the 
rear. 

At sunset they were outside Portland. The 
English had come up within a league ; but it was 
now dead calm, and they drifted apart in the tide. 
The Duke tliought of nothing, but at midnight the 
Spanish officers stirred him out of his sleep to urge 
him to set his great galleasses to work ; now was 
their chance. The dawn brought a chance still 
better, for it brought an east wind, and the Si3an- 
iards had now the weather-gage. Could they once 
close and grapple "v\dth the English ships, their 
superior numbers would then assure them a victory, 
and Howard, being to leeward and inshore, would 
have to pass through the middle of the Spanish line 
to recover his advantage. However, it v/as the same 
story. The Spaniards could not use an opportunity 
when they had one. New-modelled for superiority 
of sailings -the English ships had the same advan- 
tage over the galleons as the steam cruisers Avould 
have over the old three-deckers. While the breeze 
held they went where they pleased. The Spaniards 
were out-sailed, out-matched, crushed by guns of 
longer range than theirs. Their own shot flew high 
over the low English hulls, while every ball found 
its way through their own towering sides. This 
time the San Martin was in the thick of it. Her 
double timbers were ripped and torn ; the holy 



Sailing of the Armada 197 

standard was cut in two ; the water poured through 
the shot-holes. The men lost their nerve. In such 
ships as had no gentlemen on board notable signs 
were observed of flinching. 

At the end of that day's fighting the English 
powder gave out. Two days' service had been the 
limit of the Queen's allowance. Howard had 
pressed for a more liberal supply at the last mo- 
ment, and had received the characteristic answer 
that he must state precisely how much he wanted 
before more could be sent. The lighting of the 
beacons had quickened ifche official pulse a little. 
A. small addition had been despatched to Weymouth 
or Poole, and no more could be done till it arrived. 
The Duke, meanwhile, was left to smooth his 
ruffled plumes and drift on upon his way. But by 
this time England was awake. Fresh privateers, 
with powder, meat, bread, fruit, anything that they 
could bring, were pouring out from the Dorsetshire 
harbours. Sir George Carey had come from the 
Needles in time to share the honours of the last 
battle, 'round shot,' as he said, 'flying thick as 
musket balls in a skirmish on land.' 

The Duke had observed uneasily from the San 
Martins deck that his pursuers were growing 
numerous. He had made up his mind definitely to 
go for the Isle of Wight, shelter his fleet in the So- 
lent, land 10,000 men in the island, and stand on his 
defence till he heard from Parma. - He must fight 
another battle ; but, cut up as he had been, he had 
as yet lost but two ships, and those by accident. 



198 Ewjlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Centurij 

He might fairly hope to force his way in with helj) 
from above, for which he had special reason to look 
in the next engagement. Wednesday was a breath- 
less calm. The English were taking in their sup- 
plies. The Ai'mada lay still, repairing damages. 
Thursday would be St. Dominic's Day. St. Dom- 
inic belonged to the Duke's own family, and was 
his patron saint. St. Dominic, he felt sure, would 
now stand by his kinsman. 

The morning broke with a light air. The Eng- 
lish would be less able to move, and with the help 
of the galleasses he might hope to come to close 
quarters at last. Howard seemed inclined to give 
him his wish. With just Avind enough to move the 
Lord Admiral led in the Arh Raleigh straight down 
on the Spanish centre. The Ark outsailed her con- 
sorts and found herself alone with the galleons all 
round her. At that moment the wind dropped. 
The Spanish boarding-parties Avere at their posts. 
The tops were manned with musketeers, the grap- 
pling irons all prepared to fling into the Ark's rig- 
ging. In imagination the English Admiral was 
their own. But each day's experience was to teach 
them a new lesson. Eleven boats dropped from 
the Ark's sides and took her in tow. The breeze 
rose again as she began to move. Her sails filled, 
and she slipped away through the water, leaving the 
Spaniards as if they were at anchor, staring in help- 
less amazement. The wind brought up Drake and 
the rest, and then began again the terrible cannon- 
ade from which the Armada had already suffered so 



Sailing of the Armada 199 

frightfully. It seemed that mornuig as if the Eng- 
lish were using guns of even heavier metal than on 
either of the preceding days. The armament had 
not been changed. The growth was in their own 
frightened imagination. The Duke had other 
causes for uneasiness. His own magazines were 
also giving out under the unexpected demands up- 
on them. One battle was the utmost which he had 
looked for. He had fought three, and the end was 
no nearer than before. With resolution he might 
still have made his way into St. Helen's roads, for 
the English were evidently afraid to close with 
him. But when St. Dominic, too, failed him he lost 
his head. He lost his heart, and losing heart he 
lost all. In the Solent he would have been com- 
paratively safe, and he could easily have taken the 
Isle of Wight ; but his one thought now was to find 
safety under Parma's gaberdine and make for Calais 
or Dunkirk. He supposed Parma to have already 
embarked, on hearing of his coming, Avith a second 
armed fleet, and in condition for immediate action. 
He sent on another pinnace, pressing for help, 
pressing for ammunition, and fly-boats to protect 
the galleons ; and Parma was himself looking to be 
supplied from the Armada, with no second fleet at 
all, only a flotilla of river barges which would need 
a week's work to be prepared for the crossing. 

Philip had provided a splendid fleet, a splendid 
army, and the finest sailors in the .world except the 
English. He had failed to realise that the grandest 
preparations are useless with a fool to command. 



200 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Centurij 

The poor Duke was less to blame than his master. 
An office had been thrust upon him for which he 
knew that he had not a single qualification. His 
one anxiety was to find Parma, lay the weight on 
Parma's shoulders, and so have done with it. 

On Friday he was left alone to make his way up 
Channel towards the French shore. The English 
still followed, but he counted that in Calais roads 
he would be in French waters, where they would 
not dare to meddle with him. They would then, 
he thought, go home and annoy him no further. 
As he dropped anchor in the dusk outside Calais on 
Saturday evening he saw, to his disgust, that the en- 
demoniada gente — the infernal devils— as he called 
them, had brought up at the same moment with 
himself, half a league astern of him. His one trust 
was in the Prince of Parma, and Parma at any rate 
was now within touch. 



LECTITEE IX 

DEFEAT OF THE ARMADA 

In the gallery at Madrid there is a picture, painted 
by Titian, representing the Genius of Spain coming 
to the delivery of the afflicted Bride of Christ. 
Titian was dead, but the temper of the age survived, 
and in the study of that great picture you will see 
the spirit in which the Spanish nation had set out 
for the conquest of England. The scene is the 
seashore. The Church a naked Andromeda, with 
dishevelled hair, fastened to the trunk of an ancient 
disbranched tree. The cross lies at her feet, the 
cup overturned, the serpents of heresy biting at her 
from behind with uplifted crests. Coming on be- 
fore a leading breeze is the sea monster, the Moslem 
fleet, eager for their prey ; while in front is Perseus, 
the Genius of Spain, banner in hand, with the le- 
gions of the faithful laying not raiment before 
him, but shield and helmet, the apparel of war for 
the Lady of Nations to clothe herself with strength 
and smite her foes. 

In the Armada the crusading enthusiasm had 
reached its point and focus. England w^as the 
stake to which the Virgin, the daughter of Sion, 
was bound in captivity. Perseus had come at last 



202 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

in the person of tlie Duke of Medina Sidonia, and 
with him all that was best and brightest in the 
countrymen of Cervantes, to break her bonds and 
replace her on her throne. They had sailed into the 
Channel in pious hope, with the blessed banner 
waving over their heads. 

To be the executor of the decrees of Providence is 
a lofty ambition, but men in a state of high emotion 
overlook the precautions which are not to be dis- 
pensed with even on the sublimest of errands. Don 
Quixote, when he set out to redress the wrongs of 
humanity, forgot that a change of linen might be 
necessary, and that he must take money with him 
to pay his hotel bills. Philip II., in sending the 
Armada to England, and confident in supernatural 
protection, imagined an unresisted triumphal pro- 
cession. Ho forgot that contractors might be ras- 
cals, that water four months in the casks in a hot 
climate turned putrid, and that putrid water would 
poison his ships' companies, though his crews were 
companies of angels. He forgot that the servants 
of the evil one might fight for their mistress after 
all, and that he must send adequate supplies of 
powder, and, worst forgetfulness of all, that a great 
naval expedition required a leader who understood 
his business. Perseus, in the shape of the Duke of 
Medina Sidonia, after a Aveek of disastrous battles, 
found himself at the end of it in an exposed road- 
stead, where he ought never to have been, nine- 
tenths of his provisions thrown overboard as unfit 
for food, his ammunition exhausted by the unforeseen 



Defeat of the Armada 203 

demands upon it, the seamen and soldiers harassed 
and dispirited, officers the whole week without sleep, 
and the enemy, who had hunted him from Plymouth 
to Calais, anchored within half a league of him. 

Still, after all his misadventures, he had brought 
the fleet, if not to the North Foreland, yet within a 
few miles of it, and to outward appearance not ma- 
terially injured. Two of the galleons had been 
taken ; a third, the Santa Ana, had strayed ; and his 
galleys had left him, being found too weak for the 
Channel sea ; but the great armament had reached 
its destination substantially uninjured so far as 
English eyes could see. Hundreds of men had 
been killed and hundreds more wounded, and the 
spirit of the rest had been shaken. But the loss of 
life could only be conjectured on board the English 
fleet. The English admiral could only see that the 
Duke was now in touch with Parma. Parma, they 
knew, had an army at Dunkirk with him, which was 
to cross to England. He had been collecting men, 
barges, and transports all the winter and spring, and 
the backward state of Parma's preparations could 
not be anticipated, still less relied upon. The Cal- 
ais anchorage was unsafe ; but at that season of the 
year, especially after a wet summer, the weather 
usually settled ; and to attack the Spaniards in a 
French port might be dangerous for many reasons. 
It was uncertain after the day of the Barricades 
whether the Duke of Guise or Henry of Valois was 
master of France, and a violation of the neutrality 
laws might easily at that moment bring Guise and 



204 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

France into the field on the Spaniards' side. It 
was, no doubt, with some such expectation that the 
Duke and his advisers had chosen Calais as the 
j)oint at which to bring up. It was now Saturday, 
the 7th of August. The governor of the town came 
off in the evening to the San Martin. He exjoressed 
surprise to see the Spanish fleet in so exposed a 
position, but he was profuse iu his offers of service. 
Anything which the Duke required should be pro- 
vided, especially every facility for communicating 
with Dunkirk and Parma. The Duke thanked him, 
said that he supposed Parma to be already em- 
barked with his troops, ready for the passage, and 
that his own stay in the roads would be but brief. 
On Monday morning at latest he expected that the 
attempt to cross would be made. The governor 
took his leave, and the Duke, relieved from his anx- 
ieties, was left to a peaceful night. He was dis- 
turbed on the Sunday morning by an exjDress from 
Parma informing him that, so far from being em- 
barked, tlie army could not be ready for a fortnight. 
The barges were not in condition for sea. The 
troops were in camp. The arms and stores were on 
the quays at Dunkirk. As for the fly-boats and 
ammunition which the Duke had asked for, he had 
none to spare. He had himself looked to be sup- 
plied from the Armada. He promised to use his 
best expedition, but the Duke, meanwhile, must see 
to the safety of the fleet. 

Unwelcome news to a harassed landsman thrust 
into the position of an admiral and eager to be rid 



Defeat of the Armada 205 

of his responsibilities. If by evil fortune the north- 
wester should come down upon him, with the shoals 
and sandbanks close under his lee, he would be in a 
bad way. Nor was the view behind him calculated 
for comfort. Tliere lay the enemy almost within 
gunshot, who, though scarcely more than half his 
numbers, had hunted him like a pack of blood- 
hounds, and, worse than all, in double strength ; for 
the Thames squadron — three Queen's ships and 
thirty London adventurers — under Lord H. Sey- 
mom- and Sir John Hawkins, had crossed in the 
night. There they were between him and Cape 
Grisnez, and the reinforcements meant plainly 
enough that mischief was in the wind. 

After a week so trying the Spanish crews would 
have been glad of a Sunday's rest if they could have 
had it ; but the rough handling which they had gone 
through had thrown everything into disorder. The 
sick and wounded had to be cared for, torn rigging 
looked to, splintered timbers mended, decks scoured, 
and guns and arms cleaned up and put to rights. 
And so it was that no rest could be allov/ed ; so 
much had to be done, and so busy was everyone, that 
the usual rations were not served out and the Sun- 
day was kept as a fast. In the afternoon the stew- 
ards went ashore for fresh meat and vegetables. 
They came back with their boats loaded, and the 
prospect seemed a little less gloomy. Suddenly, 
as the Duke and a group of officers were watching 
the English fleet from the San Martin's pooj) deck, 
a small smart pinnace, carrying a gun in her bow, 



206 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

shot out from Howard's lines, bore down on tlie San 
Martin, sailed round her, sending in a sliot or two as 
slie passed, and went off unliurt. The Spanish of- 
ficers could not help admiring such airy imperti- 
nence. Hugo de Mon9ada sent a ball after the 
pinnace, which went through her mainsail, but 
did no damage, and the pinnace again disappeared 
behind the English ships. 

So a Spanish officer describes the scene. The 
English story says nothing of the pinnace ; but she 
doubtless came and went as the Spaniard says, and 
for sufficient purpose. The English, too, were in 
straits, though the Duke did not dream of it. You 
will remember that the last supplies which the 
Queen had allowed to the fleet had been issued in the 
middle of June, They were to serve for a month, 
and the contractors were forbidden to prepare more. 
The Queen had clung to her hope that her differ- 
ences with Philip were to be settled by the Commis- 
sion at Ostend; and she feared that if Drake and 
Howard were too well furnished they would venture 
some fresh rash stroke on the coast of Spain, Avhicli 
might mar the negotiations. Their month's provi- 
sions had been stretched to serve for six weeks, and 
when the Armada appeared but two full days' ra- 
tions remained. On these they had fought their 
way up Channel. Something had been brought out 
by private exertion on the Dorsetshire coast, and 
Seymour had, perhaps, brought a little more. But they 
were still in extremity. The contractors had warned 
the Government that they could provide nothing 



Defeat of the Armada 207 

witLout notice, and notice had not been given. The 
adventurers were in better state,having been equipped 
by private owners. But the Queen's ships in a day 
or two more must either go home or their crews 
would be starving. They had been on reduced ra- 
tions for near two months. Worse than that, they 
were still poisoned by the sour beer. The Queen 
had changed her mind so often, now ordering the 
fleet to prepare for sea, then recalling her instruc- 
tions and paying off the men, that those whom How- 
ard had with him had been enlisted in haste, had 
come on board as they were, and their clothes were 
hanging in rags on them. The fighting and the 
sight of the flying Spaniards were meat and drink, 
and clothing too, and had made them careless of 
all else. There was no fear of mutiny ; but there 
was a limit to the toughest endm'ance. If the Ar- 
mada was left undisturbed a long struggle might be 
still before them. The enemy would recover from 
its flurry, and Parma would come out from Dunkirk. 
To attack them directly in French waters might 
lead to perilous complications, while delay meant 
famine. The Spanish fleet had to be started from 
the roads in some way. Done it must be, and done 
immediately. 

Then, on that same Sunday afternoon a memor- 
able council of war was held in the Ark^s main cabin. 
Howard, Drake, Seymour, Hawkins, Martin Fro- 
bisher, and two or three others met to consult, 
knowing that on them at that moment the liberties 
of England were depending. Their resolution was 



208 Eiujlisli Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

taken promptly. There was no time for talk. Af- 
ter nightfall a strong flood tide would be setting up 
along shore to the Spanish anchorage. They would 
try what could be done with fire ships, and the ex- 
cursion of the pinnace, which was taken for bravado, 
was probably for a survey of the Armada's exact 
position. Meantime eight useless vessels were 
coated with pitch — hulls, spars, and rigging. Pitch 
was poured on the decks and over the sides, and 
parties were told off to steer them to their destina- 
tion and then fire and leave them. 

The hours stole on, and twilight passed into dark. 
The night was without a moon. The Duke paced 
his deck late with uneasy sense of danger. He ob- 
served lights moving up and down the English lines, 
and imagining that the endemoniada gente — the in- 
fernal devils — might be up to mischief, ordered a 
sharp look-out. A faint westerly air was cui'ling 
the water, and towards midnight the watchers on 
board the galleons made out dimly several ships 
Avhich seemed to be drifting down upon them. Their 
experience since the action off Plymouth had been 
so strange and unlooked for that anything unintel- 
ligible which the English did was alarming. 

The phantom forms drew nearer, and were almost 
among them when they broke into a blaze from 
water-line to truck, and the two fleets were seen by 
the lurid light of the conflagration ; the anchorage, 
the walls and windows of Calais, and the sea shining 
red far as eye could reach, as if the ocean itself was 
burning. Among the dangers which they might 



Defeat of the Armada 209 

have to encounter, English fireworks had been es- 
pecially dreaded by the Spaniards. Fire shij)S — a 
fit device of heretics — had worked havoc among the 
Spanish troops, when the bridge was blown up, at 
Antwerp. They imagined that similar infernal ma- 
chines were approaching the Armada. A capable 
commander would have sent a few launches to grap- 
ple the burning hulks, which of course were now de- 
serted, and tow them out of harm's way. Spanish 
sailors were not cowards, and would not have 
flinched from duty because it might be dangerous ; 
but the Duke and Diego Florez lost their heads 
again. A signal gun from the San Ilartin ordered 
the whole fleet to slip their cables and stand out 
to sea. 
— -5^ Orders given in panic are doubly unwise, for they 
spread the terror in which they originate. The dan- 
ger from the fire ships was chiefly from the effect 
on the imagination, for they appear to have diifted 
by and done no real injury. And it speaks well for 
the seamanship and courage of the Spaniards that 
they were able, crowded together as they were, at 
midnight and in sudden alarm to set their canvas and 
clear out without running into one another. They 
buoyed their cables, expecting to return for them at 
daylight, and with only a single accident, to be 
mentioned directly, they executed successfully a 
really difiicult manoeuvre. 

The Duke was delighted with himself. The fire 
ships burned harmlessly out. He had bafiled the 
inventions of the endemoniada genfe. He brought 
14 



210 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

up a league outside the harbour, aud supposed that 
the whole Armada had done the same. Unluckily 
for himself, he found it at daylight divided into two 
bodies. The San 3Iartin with forty of the best ap- 
pointed of the galleons were riding together at their 
anchors. The rest, two-thirds of the whole, having 
no second anchors ready, and inexperienced in 
Channel tides and currents, had been lying to. The 
west wind was bloAving up. Without seeing where 
they ^YeTe going they had drifted to leeward, and 
were two leagues o&, towards Gravelines, danger- 
ously near the shore. The Duke was too ignorant 
to realise the full peril of his situation. He sig- 
nalled to them to return and rejoin him. As the 
wind and tide stood it was impossible. He pro- 
posed to follow them. The pilots told him that if 
he did the whole fleet might be lost on the banks. 
Towards the land the look of things Avas not more 
encouraging. 

One accident only had happened the night before. 
The Capitana galleass, with Don Hugo de Mon^ada 
and eight hundred men on board, had fouled lier 
helm in a cable in getting under way and had be- 
come unmanageable. The galley slaves disobeyed 
orders, or else Don Hugo was as incompetent as his 
commander-in-chief. The galleass had gone on the 
sands, and as the tide ebbed had fallen over on her 
side. Howard, seeing her condition, had followed 
her in the Ark with four or five other of the Queen's 
ships, and was furiously attacking her with his 
boats, careless of neutrality laws. Howard's theory 



Defeat of the Armada 211 

was, as lie said, to pluck the feathers one by one 
from the Spaniard's wing, and here was a feather 
worth picking np. The galleass was the most splen- 
did vessel of her kind afloat, Don Hugo one of the 
greatest of Spanish grandees. 

Howard was making a double mistake. He took 
the galleass at last, after three hours' fighting. Don 
Hugo was killed by a musket ball. The vessel was 
plundered, and Howard's men took possession, 
meaning to carry her away when the tide rose. The 
French authorities ordered him off, threatening to 
fire upon him ; and after wasting the forenoon, he 
was obliged at last to leave her where she lay. 
Worse than this, he had lost three precious hours, 
and had lost along with them, in the opinion of the 
Prince of Parma, the honours of the great day. 

Drake and Hawkins knew better than to waste 
time plucking single feathers. The fire ships had 
been more effective than they could have dared to 
hope. The enemy was broken up. The Duke was 
shorn of half his strength, and the Lord had de- 
livered him into their hand. He had got under 
way, still signalling wildly, and uncertain in which 
direction to turn. His uncertainties were ended 
for him by seeing Drake bearing down upon him 
with the whole English fleet, save those which were 
loitering about the galleass. The English had now 
the advantage of numbers. The superiority of their 
guns he knew already, and their greater speed al- 
lowed him no hope to escape a battle. Forty ships 
alone were left to him to defend the banner of the 



212 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

crusade and the honour of Castile ; but those forty 
were the largest and the most j)owerfully armed and 
manned that he had, and on board them were 
Oquendo, De Leyva, Eecalde, and Bretandona, the 
best officers in the Spanish navy next to the lost 
Don Pedro. 

It was now or never for England. The scene of 
the action which was to decide the future of Europe 
was between Calais and Dunkirk, a few miles off 
shore, and within sight of Parma's camp. There 
was no more manceuvring for the weather-gage, no 
more fighting at long range. Drake dashed straight 
upon his prey as the falcon stoops uj)on its quarry. 
A chance had fallen to him which might never re- 
turn ; not for the vain distinction of carrying prizes 
into English ports, not for the lay of honour which 
would fall on him if he could carry off the sacred 
banner itself and hang it in the Abbey at West- 
minster, but a chance so to handle the Armada that 
it should never be seen asrain in Enalish waters, and 
deal such a blow on Philip that the Spanish Empire 
should reel with it. The English ships had the 
same superiority over the galleons which steam- 
ers have now over sailing vessels. They had twice 
the speed ; they could lie two points nearer to the 
wind. Sweeping round them at cable's length, 
crowding them in one upon the other, yet never 
once giving them a chance to grapple, they hurled 
in their cataracts of round shot. Short as was the 
powder supply, there was no sparing it that morn- 
ing. The hours went on, and still the battle raged, 



Defeat of the Armada 213 

if battle it could be called where tlie blows were all 
dealt on one side and the suffering was all on the 
other. Never on sea or land did the Spaniards show 
themselves worthier of their great name than on that 
day. But from the first they could do nothing. It 
was said afterwards in Spain that the Duke showed 
the white feather, that he charged his pilot to keep 
him out of harm's way, that he shut himself up in 
his cabin, buried in woolpacks, and so on. The 
Duke had faults enough, but poltroonery was not 
one of them. He, who till he entered the English 
Channel had never been in action on sea or land, 
found himself, as he said, in the midst of the most 
furious engagement recorded in the history of the 
world. As to being out of harm's way, the standard 
at his masthead drew the hottest of the fire upon 
him. The San Martins timbers were of oak and a 
foot thick, but the shot, he said, went through them 
enough to shatter a rock. Her deck was a slaugh- 
terhouse ; half his company were killed or wounded, 
and no more would have been heard or seen of the 
San Martin or her commander had not Oquendo 
and De Leyva pushed in to the rescue and enabled 
him to creep away under their cover. He himself 
saw nothing more of the action after this. The 
smoke, he said, Avas so thick that he could make out 
nothing, even from his masthead. But all round it 
was but a repetition of the same scene. The Span- 
ish shot flew high, as before, above the low English 
hulls, and they were themselves helpless butts to 
the English guns. And it is noticeable and su- 



214 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

premely creditable to them that not a single galleon 
struck her colours. One of them, after a long duel 
with an Englishman, was on the point of sinking. 
An English officer, admiring the courage which the 
Spaniards had shown, ran out upon his bowsprit, 
told them that they had done all which became men, 
and urged them to surrender and save their lives. 
For answer they cursed the English as cowards and 
chickens because they refused to close. The officer 
was shot. His fall brought a last broadside on them, 
which finished the work. They went down, and the 
water closed over them. Rather death to the soh 
diers of the Cross than surrender to a heretic. 

The deadly hail rained on. In some ships blood 
was seen streaming out of the scupper-holes. Yet 
there was no yielding ; all ranks showed equal hero- 
ism. The priests went up and down in the midst 
of the carnage, holding the crucifix before the eyes 
of the dying. At midday Howard came up to claim 
a second share in a victory which was no longer 
doubtful. Towards the afternoon the Spanish fire 
slackened. Their powder was gone, and they could 
make no return to the cannonade which was still 
overwhelming them. They admitted freely after- 
wards that if the attack had been continued but two 
hours more they must all have struck or gone ashore. 
But the English magazines were empty also; the 
last cartridge was shot away, and the battle ended 
from mere inability to keep it up. It had been 
fought on both sides with peculiar determination. 
In the English there was the accumulated resent- 



Defeat of the Armada 215 

ment of thirty years of menace to their country and 
their creed, with the enemy in tangible shape at last 
to be caught and gTappled with ; in the Spanish, 
the sense that if their cause had not brought them 
the help they looked for from above, the hon- 
our and faith of Castile should not suffer in their 
hands. 

It was over. The English drew off, regretting 
that their thrifty mistress had limited their means 
of fighting for her, and so obliged them to leave 
their work half done. When the cannon ceased 
the Avind rose, the smoke rolled away, and in the 
level light of the simset they could see the results 
of the action. 

A galleon in Recalde's squadron was sinking with 
all hands. The San Philip and the San 3Iatteo 
Avere drifting dismasted towards the Dutch coast, 
where they were afterwards wrecked. Those which 
were left with canvas still showing were crawling 
slowly after their comrades who had not been 
engaged, the spars and rigging so cut up that they 
could scarce bear their sails. The loss of life 
could only be conjectured, but it had been obviously 
terrible. The nor'-wester was blowing up and was 
pressing the wounded ships upon the shoals, from 
which, if it held, it seemed impossible in their 
crippled state they would be able to work off. 

In this condition Drake left them for the night, 
not to rest, but from any quarter to collect, if he 
could, more food and powder. The snake had been 
scotched, but not killed. More than half the great 



216 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

fleet were far away, untouched by sliot, perhaps 
able to fight a second battle if they recovered heart. 
To follow, to drive them on the banks if the wind 
held, or into the North Sea, anywhere so that he 
left them no chance of joining hands with Parma 
again, and to use the time before they had rallied 
from his blows, that was the present necessity. His 
own poor fellows were famished and in rags ; but 
neither he nor they had leisiu'e to think of them- 
selves. There was but one thought in the whole of 
them, to be again in chase of the Hying foe. Howard 
was resolute as Drake. All that was possible was 
swiftly done. Seymom- and the Thames squadron 
were to stay in the Straits and watch Parma. From 
every attainable source food and powder were 
collected for the rest — far short in both ways of 
what ought to have been, but, as Drake said, ' we 
were resolved to put on a brag and go on as if we 
needed nothing.' Before dawn the admiral and he 
were again oil' on the chase. 
y-^ The brag was uuueeded. What man could do 
had been done, and the rest was left to the elements. 
Never again could Spanish seamen be brought to 
face the English guns with Medina Sidonia to lead 
them. They had a fool at their head. The Invisi- 
ble Powers in whom they had been taught to trust 
had deserted them. Their confidence was gone 
and their spirit broken. Drearily the morning 
broke ou the Duke and his consorts the day after 
the battle. The Armada had collected in the night. 
The nor'-wester had freshened to a gale, and they 



Defeat of the Armada 217 

were labouring heavily along, making fatal leeway 
towards the shoals. 

It was St. La^vrence's Day, Philip's patron saint, 
whose shoulder-bone he had lately added to the 
treasures of the Escurial ; but St. Lawrence was as 
heedless as St. Dominic. The San Martin had but 
six fathoms under her. Those nearer to the land 
signalled five, and right before them they could see 
the brown foam of the breakers curling over the 
sands, while on their weather-beam, a mile distant 
and clinging to them like the shadow of death, were 
the English ships which had pursued them from Ply- 
mouth like the dogs of the Furies. The Spanish 
sailors and soldiers had been without food since 
the evening when they anchored at Calais. All 
Sunday they had been at work, no rest allowed 
them to eat. On the Sunday night they had been 
stirred out of their sleep by the fire ships. Mon- 
day they had been fighting, and Monday night com- 
mitting their dead to the sea. Now they seemed 
advancing directly upon inevitable destruction. As 
the wind stood there was still room for them to 
wear and thus escape the banks, but they would 
then have to face the enemy, who seemed only 
refraining from attacking them because while they 
continued on their present course the winds and 
waves would finish the work without help from 
man. Eecalde, De Leyva, Oquendo, and other 
officers were sent for to the San Martin to consult. 
Oquendo came last. ' x\h, Seilor Oquendo,' said the 
Duke as the heroic Biscayan stepped on board, ' que, 



218 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

haremos ? ' (what sliall we do ?) ' Let your Ex- 
cellency bid load the guns again,' was Oquendo's 
gallant answer. It could not be. De Le3^va him- 
self said that the men would not fight the English 
again. Florez advised surrender. The Duke 
wavered. It was said that a boat was actually 
lowered to go off to Howard and make terms, and 
that Oquendo swore that if the boat left the San 
Martin on such an errand he Avould fling Florez 
into the sea, Oquendo's advice would have, per- 
haps, been the safest if the Duke could have taken 
it. There were still seventy ships in the Armada 
little hurt. The English were ' bragging,' as Drake 
said, and in no condition themselves for another 
serious engagement. But the temper of the entire 
fleet made a courageous course impossible. There 
was but one Oquendo. Discipline Avas gone. The 
soldiers in their desperation had taken the com- 
mand out of the hands of the seamen. Ofiicers and 
men alike abandoned hope, and, with no human 
prospect of salvation left to them, they flung them- 
selves on their knees upon the decks and prayed 
the Almighty to have pity on them. But two weeks 
were gone since they had knelt on those same decks 
on the first sight of the English shore to thank 
Him for having brought them so far on an enter- 
prise so glorious. Two weeks ; and what weeks ! 
Wrecked, torn b}^ cannon shot, ten thousand of 
them dead or dying — for this was the estimated 
loss by battle — the survivors could now but pray to 
be delivered from a miserable death by the elements. 



Defeat of the Armada 219 

In cyclones the wind often changes suddenly back 
from north-west to west, from ^yest to south. At 
that moment, as if in answer to their petition, one 
of these sudden shifts of wind saved them from the 
immediate peril. The gale backed round to S. S. 
W., and ceased to press them on the shoals. They 
could ease their sheets, draw off into open water, 
and steer a course up the middle of the North 
Sea, 

So only that they went north, Drake was content 
to leave them unmolested. Once away into the high 
latitudes they might go where they w^ould. Neither 
Howard nor he, in the low state of their own maga- 
zines, desired any unnecessary fighting. If the Ar- 
mada turned back they must close with it. If it 
held its present coiu-se they must follow it till they 
could be assured it would communicate no more for 
that summer with the Prince of Parma. Drake 
thought they would perhaps make for the Baltic or 
some port in Norway, They would meet no hos- 
pitable reception from either Swedes or Danes, but 
they would probably try. One only imminent 
danger remained to be provided against. If they 
turned into the Forth, it was still possible for the 
Spaniards to redeem their defeat, and even yet 
shake Elizabeth's throne. Among the many plans 
which had been formed for the invasion of England, 
a landing in Scotland had long been the favourite. 
Guise had always preferred Scotland when it was 
intended that Guise should be the leader. Santa 
Cruz had been in close correspondence with Guise 



220 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

on this very subject, and many officers in the Ar- 
mada must have been acquainted with Santa Cruz's 
views. The Scotch Catholic nobles were still sav- 
age at Mary Stuart's execution, and had the Armada 
anchored in Leitli Eoads with twenty thousand 
men, half a million ducats, and a Santa Cruz at its 
head, it might have kindled a blaze at that moment 
from John o' Groat's Land to the Border. 

But no such purpose occurred to the Duke of 
Medina Sidonia. He probably knew nothing at all 
of Scotland or its parties. Among the many defici- 
encies which he had pleaded to Philip as unfitting 
him for the command, he had said that Santa Cruz 
had acquaintances among the English and Scotch 
peers. He had himself none. The small informa- 
tion which he had of anything did not go bej^ond 
his orange gardens and his tunny hshiug. His chief 
merit was that he was conscious of his incapacity ; 
and, detesting a service into which he had been 
fooled by a hysterical nun, his only anxiety was to 
carry home the still considerable fleet which had 
been trusted to him without further loss. Beyond 
Scotland and the Scotch isles there was the open 
ocean, and in the open ocean there were no sand- 
banks and no English guns. Thus, with all sail set 
he went on before the wind. Drake and Howard 
attended him till they had seen him past the Forth, 
and knew then that there was no more to fear. It 
was time to see to the wants of their own poor fel- 
lows, who had endured so patiently and fought so 
magnificently. Ou the l.Stli of August they saw the 



Defeat of the Armada 221 

last of tlie Armada, turned back, and made their 
way to the Thames. 

But the story has yet to be told of the final fate of 
the great 'enterprise of England' (the 'empresa 
de luglaterra '), the objc>ct of so many prayers, on 
which the hopes of the Catholic world had been 
so long and passionately fixed. It had been osten- 
tatiously a religious crusade. The preparations 
had been attended with peculiar solemnities. In 
the eyes of the faithful it was to be the execution of 
Divine justice on a wicked princess and a wicked 
people. In the eyes of millions whose convictions 
were less decided it was an appeal to God's judg- 
ment to decide between the Reformation and the 
Pope. There was an appropriateness, therefore, if 
due to accident, that other causes besides the action 
of man should have combined in its overthrow. 

The Spaniards were experienced sailors ; a voyage 
round the Orkneys and round Ireland to Spain 
might be tedious, but at that season of the year 
need not have seemed either dangerous or diflicult. 
On inquiry, however, it was found that the condi- 
tion of the fleet was seriously alarming. The pro- 
visions placed on board at Lisbon had been found 
unfit for food, and almost all had been thrown into 
the sea. The fresh stores taken in at Corunna had 
been consumed, and it was found that at the present 
rate there would be nothing left in a fortnight. 
Worse than all, the water-casks refilled there had 
been carelessly stowed. They had been shot through 
in the fighting and were empty ; while of clothing 



222 English Seamen in the Sixicenih Century 

or other comforts for the cold regions which they 
were entering no thought had been taken. The 
mules and horses were flung overboard, and Scotch 
smacks, which had followed the retreating fleet, re- 
ported that they had sailed for miles through float- 
ing carcasses. 

The rations were reduced for each man to a daily 
half-pound of biscuit, a pint of water, and a pint 
of wine. Thus, sick and hungry, the wounded left 
to the care of a medical officer, who went from ship 
to ship, the subjects of so many prayers were left to 
encounter the climate of the North Atlantic. The 
Duke blamed all but himself ; he hanged one poor 
captain for neglect of orders, and would have hanged 
another had he dared ; but his authority was gone. 
They passed the Orknej s in a single body. They 
then parted, it was said in a fog ; but each com- 
mander had to look out for himself and his men. 
In many ships water must be had somewhere, or 
they would die. The San 3Iartin, with sixty con- 
sorts, went north to the sixtieth parallel. From 
that height the pilots promised to take them down 
clear of the coast. The wind still clung to the west, 
each day blowing harder than the last. When they 
braced round to it their wounded spars gave way. 
Their rigging parted. With the greatest difficulty 
they made at last sufficient offing, and rolled down 
somehow out of sight of land, dipping their yards in 
the enormous seas. Of the rest, one or two went 
down among the Western Isles and became wrecks 
there, their crews, or part of them, making their 



Defeat of the Armada 223 

way tliroiigli Scotland to Flanders. Others went 
north to Shetland or the Faroe Islands. Between 
thhiy and forty were tempted in upon the Irish 
coasts. There were Irishmen in the fleet, who must 
have told them that they would find the water there 
for which they were perishing, safe harbours, and a 
friendly Catholic people ; and they found either 
harbours which they could not reach or sea-washed 
sands and reefs. They were all wrecked at various 
places between Donegal and the Blaskets. Some- 
thing like eight thousand half-droAvned wretches 
struggled on shore alive. Many were gentlemen, 
richly dressed, with velvet coats, gold chains, and 
rings. The common sailors and soldiers had been 
paid their wages before they started, and each had 
a bag of ducats lashed to his waist when he landed 
through the surf. The wild Irish of the coast, 
tempted by the booty, knocked unknown numbers 
of them on the head with their battle-axes, or 
stripped them naked and left them to die of the 
cold. On one long sand strip in Sligo an English 
officer counted eleven hundred bodies, and he heard 
that there were as many more a few miles distant. 
The better-educated of the Ulster chiefs, the 
O'Rourke and O'Donnell, hurried down to stop the 
butchery and spare Ireland the shame of murdering 
helpless Catholic friends. Many — how many can- 
not be said — found protection in their castles. But 
even so it seemed as if some inexorable fate pur- 
sued all who had sailed in that doomed expedi- 
tion. Alonzo de Leyva, with half a hundred young 



224 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

Spanish nobles of liigli rank who were under his 
special charge, made his way in a galleass into 
KilKbeg. He was himself disabled in landing. 
O'Donnell received and took care of him and his 
companions. After remaining in O'Donnell's castle 
for a month he recovered. The weather appeared 
to mend. The galleass was patched up, and De 
Leyva ventured an attempt to make his way in her 
to Scotland. He had passed the worst danger, and 
Scotland was almost in sight ; but fate would have 
its victims. The galleass stiTick a rock off Dunluce 
and went to pieces, and Don Alonzo and the 
princely youths who had sailed with him were 
washed ashore all dead, to find an unmarked gxave 
in Antrim. 

Most pitiful of all was the fate of those who fell 
into the hands of the Enghsh garrisons in Galway 
and Mayo. Galleons had found their w'ay into 
Galway Bay — one of them had reached Galway 
itself — the crews haK dead with famine and 
offering a cask of wine for a cask of water. The 
Galway toAvnsmen were human, and tried to feed 
and care for them. Most were too far gone to be 
revived, and died of exhaustion. Some might have 
recovered, but recovered they would be a danger to 
the State. The English in the West of Ireland 
were but a handful in the midst of a sullen, half- 
conquered population. The ashes of the Desmond 
rebellion were still smoking, and Dr. Sanders and 
his Legatine Commission were fresh in immedi- 
ate memory. The defeat of the Armada in the 



Defeat of the Armada 225 

Channel could only have been vaguely heard of. 
All that English officers could have accurately 
known must have been that an enormous expedition 
had been sent to England by Philip to restore 
the Pope ; and Spaniards, they found, were landing 
in thousands in the midst of them with arms and 
money; distressed for the moment, but sure, if 
alloAved time to get their strength again, to set 
Connaught in a blaze. They had no fortresses to 
hold so many prisoners, no means of feeding them, 
no men to spare to escort them to Dublin. They 
were responsible to the Queen's Government for 
the safety of the country. The Spaniards had not 
come on any errand of mercy to her or hers. The 
stern order went out to kill them all wherever they 
might be found, and two thousand or more w^ere 
shot, hanged, or put to the sword. Dreadful ! 
Yes, but war itself is dreadful and has its own ne- 
cessities. 

The sixty ships which had followed the San 
Martin succeeded at last in getting round Cape 
Clear, but in a condition scarcely less miserable 
than that of their companions who had perished 
in Ireland. Half their companions died — died of 
untended wounds, hunger, thirst, and famine fever. 
The survivors were moving skeletons, more shadows 
and ghosts than living men, with scarce strength 
left them to draw a rope or handle a tiller. In 
some ships there was no water for fourteen days. 
The weather in the lower latitudes lost part of its 
violence, or not one of them would have seen Spain 
15 



226 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

again. As it was they drifted on outside Scilly and 
into the Bay of Biscay, and in the second week of 
September they dropped in one by one. Becalde, 
with better success than the rest, made Corunna. 
The Duke, not knowing where he was, found him- 
self in sight of Corunna also. The crew of the San 
Martin were prostrate, and could not work her in. 
They signalled for help, but none came, and they 
dropped away to leeward to Bilbao. Oquendo had 
fallen olf still farther to Santander, and the rest of 
the sixty arrived in the following days at one or 
other of the Biscay ports. On board them, of the 
thirty thousand who had left those shores but two 
months before in high hope and passionate en- 
thusiasm, nine thousand only came back alive — if 
alive they could be called. It is touching to read 
in a letter from Bilbao of their joy at warm Spanish 
sun, the sight of the grapes on the white walls, 
and the taste of fresh home bread and water again. 
But it came too late to save them, and those 
whose bodies might have rallied died of broken 
hearts and disappointed dreams. Santa Cruz's old 
companions could not siu'vive the ruin of the 
Spanish navy. Recalde died two days after he 
landed at Bilbao. Santander was Oquendo's home. 
He had a wife and children there, but he refused 
to see them, turned his face to the wall, and died 
too. The common seamen and soldiers were too 
weak to help themselves. They had to be left on 
board the poisoned ships till hospitals could be 
prepared to take them in. The authorities of 



Defeat of the Armada 227 

Church and State did all that men could do ; but 
the case was past help, and before September 
was out all but a few hundred needed no further 
care. 

Philip, it must be said for him, spared nothing to 
relieve the misery. The widows and orphans were 
pensioned by the State. The stroke which had 
fallen was received with a dignified submission to 
the inscrutable purposes of Heaven. Diego Florez 
escaped with a brief imprisonment at Burgos. 
None else were punished for faults which lay 
chiefly in the King's own presumption in imagining 
himself the instrument of Providence. 

The Duke thought himself more sinned against 
than sinning. He did not die, like Eecalde or 
Oquendo, seeing no occasion for it. He flung 
down his command and retired to his palace at St. 
Lucan ; and so far was Philip from resenting the 
loss of the Armada on its commander, that he con- 
tinued him in his governorship of Cadiz, where 
Essex found him seven years later, and where he 
ran from Essex as he had run from Drake. 

The Spaniards made no attempt to conceal the 
greatness of their defeat. Unwilling to allow that 
the Upper Powers had been against them, they set 
it frankly down to the superior fighting powers of 
the English. 

The English themselves, the Prince of Parma 
said, were modest in their victory. They thought 
little of their OAvn gallantry. To them the defeat 
and destruction of the Spanish fleet was a declara- 



228 English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century 

tion of the Almighty in the cause of their country 
and the Protestant faith. Both sides had appealed 
to Heaven, and Heaven had spoken. 

It was the turn of the tide. The wave of the 
reconquest of the Netherlands ebbed from that 
moment. Parma took no more towns from the 
Hollanders. The Catholic peers and gentlemen of 
England, who had held aloof from the Established 
Church, waiting ad illud tcrnfms for a religious revo- 
lution, accepted the verdict of Providence. They 
discovered that in Anglicanism they could keep the 
faith of their fathers, yet remain in communion 
with their Protestant fellow-countrymen, use the 
same liturgy, and pray in the same temples. '' For 
the first time since Elizabeth's father broke the 
bonds of Kome the English became a united nation, 
joined in loyal enthusiasm for the Queen, and were 
satisfied that thenceforward no Italian priest should 
tithe or toll in her dominions. 

But all that, and all that went with it, the pass- 
ing from Spain to England of the sceptre of the 
seas, must be left to other lectures, or other lectur- 
ers who have more years before them than I. My 
ovra theme has been the poor Protestant adventur- 
ers who fought through that perilous week in the 
English Channel and saved their country and their 
country's liberty. 



